'Riddled with inaccuracies': Richard Tice hits out at 'smear campaign' over claims he dodged £100k in tax

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Richard Tice is facing accusations that he failed to pay almost £100,000 in corporation tax through four shell companies between 2020 and 2022, as reported by The Sunday Times.

The companies were set up to benefit his property investment firm which then donated £1,113,000 to Reform UK, the newspaper reported.

Asked by Tom Swarbrick if he denied failing to pay corporation tax to the benefit of his investment company, Mr Tice avoided answering directly, claiming the story was "riddled with wrong numbers, wrong dates, wrong assumptions."

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He added he "did what he was advised" and claimed he had cumulatively contributed "over £100 million of taxes" to HMRC through his businesses.

He accused The Sunday Times of "embarking upon what is a smear campaign directed by the most senior people in News UK."

Last week, Reform UK said the reported failure of Mr Tice’s company to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends was “a minor administrative error”.

In a subsequent statement posted to X, Mr Tice said a long career with multiple businesses was "bound to feature some errors" and that he was "always happy to put things right" and would pay what is owed if numbers needed rechecking.

Asked again by Tom Swarbrick to clarify if he denied that he ran four shell companies which did not pay corporation tax, Mr Tice repeated that he had "always employed advisers. I've always paid what they advised me to do.

"And I would just gently remind people the last time there was a politically motivated tax investigation into me, 10 years ago, it turned out I'd significantly overpaid by a five figure sum."

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However the Boston & Skegness MP did not deny his investment company had made donations to Reform UK, stating: "Of course I don't deny that."

"It's got nothing to do with the smears and slurs and wrong assumptions and false dates and false numbers in the Sunday Times story. Some of which, frankly, is libellous."

Mr Tice received at least £91,000 because his property investment company, Quidnet REIT Limited, did not pay the required 20% tax on the dividends before they were issued to him and his offshore trust in Jersey, The Sunday Times reported.

The Boston and Skegness MP said on X that “overall HMRC received the correct amount of tax due” and that any issue was due to “complex tax technicality around dividends to certain shareholder classes in REITs”.

He also said Reform would implement a "proper pause for a long time" on asylum seekers entering the UK when asked how the party would manage migration.

It comes as the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood today agreed with French authorities a multi-million pound deal to curb attempted journeys from northern France to Britain.

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Under the deal, which will be in place until March 2029, the UK will hand over £501 million to cover five police units and enforcement activity on French beaches – with an extra £160 million only paid if new tactics to curb Channel crossings succeed.

If efforts fail, the additional funding will stop after a year, the Home Office said.

Asked by Swarbrick how Reform would manage migration differently, Mr Tice said: "I suspect most people would say we need a proper pause for a long time in order to catch up with what is a crisis. And it's a crisis that's infuriating tens of millions of British citizens up and down the country."

Asked how Reform would manage migration, Mr Tice said "you've got to stop the migrant pull factor.

"Everybody who breaks into our country illegally should be detained, should be processed within a matter of one to two weeks, which by the way, is what the Labour Party did 20 years ago.

"You could give them a week to appeal if you want to be generous. And then you deport a lot of them because they've all broken into this country."

He added: "The bottom line is..people have to understand that they are not going to stay in this country. And whether they are returned to their home of origin, whether they're determined returned to a third party nation, the British people want them gone."