She’s richer than the Queen, but Rishi Sunak’s wife avoids UK tax as India is her ‘final resting place’

Rishi Sunak’s wife has avoided paying UK tax because she regards India as her “final resting place”, The Telegraph has learnt.

Akshata Murty, who is richer than the Queen with a personal fortune of around £725 million, pays no UK tax on her foreign earnings, thought to be around £11 million over the past year, because she claims to be non-domiciled in the UK.

She has indicated to HMRC that she has “no firm plans” to stay in Britain, even though she is married to the Chancellor, has three homes here with Mr Sunak and their two children, and runs her own British-based company.

A spokesman for Ms Murty has also refused to deny that she makes use of tax havens, after it emerged she bought shares in a company that has used a “letterbox” firm in Mauritius that enables it to reduce its tax burden.

Asked last year whether he had ever benefited from an offshore arrangement, Mr Sunak said: "No I haven't."

Meanwhile, the Chancellor himself is facing questions over why he did not declare his wife’s shareholding in the Indian tech giant Infosys, founded by her father, which has been paid almost £500 million by UK taxpayers since Mr Sunak became an MP.

Details of the Sunak family’s tax arrangements threaten to undermine his reported ambition of becoming prime minister. As well as leaving him with questions about transparency, it has shone a light on the Sunaks’ breathtaking wealth, which also includes a home in California.

Ms Murty, 41, is the daughter of Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murty, and owns almost one per cent of Infosys, the company he built and took public.

Her share in the firm pays her a dividend in India, thought to have totalled £11 million over the past year. A British citizen would have paid around £4.4 million on that income, but Ms Murty has been able to reduce her tax bill by paying tax at a lower rate in India, the country of her birth.

She remains an Indian citizen, and has chosen not to declare herself as domiciled in the UK, which is entirely within HMRC rules.

Ms Murty initially defended herself by saying she was non-domiciled because she has Indian citizenship and was not allowed under Indian law to hold dual nationality, but it became clear on Thursday that claiming non-dom status is a choice and not automatic.

HMRC’s website explains that any foreign national living in the UK can claim non-dom status as long as they have “no firm plans” to settle permanently in Britain.

A source close to Ms Murty said she considers India “her final resting place” and intends “eventually” to return if her parents need care.

Two years ago it emerged that Ms Murty had bought shares in International Market Management, which intended to set up franchised Jamie Oliver and Wendy’s restaurants in India. IMM set up an intermediary company in Mauritius, meaning it would reduce its tax burden on share dividends and capital gains.

Ms Murty’s spokesman said it was not relevant where she paid tax on overseas income, but accepted it was possible her arrangements meant she minimised her tax using tax havens.

Since Mr Sunak became an MP in 2015, Infosys has earned £493 million from public sector contracts in the UK, according to data compiled by the Spend Network, including £488,000 from the Cabinet Office, £636,000 from the Home Office and £321,000 from Network Rail. In the two years since Mr Sunak became Chancellor Infosys has been paid more than £71 million by the taxpayer.

The public sector contracts contribute to the Infosys profits of which Ms Murty is a beneficiary.

Mr Sunak has not, however, declared his wife’s shareholding in the firm in the parliamentary Register of Members’ Interests, despite a requirement for ministers to declare any family wealth “which might be thought to give rise to a conflict” with their public duties.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: "The British public deserve answers about why a company founded by Sunak’s father-in-law, in which his wife owns a stake, has been handed millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in contracts – and yet the Chancellor failed to even declare he has an interest in this company.

“Rishi Sunak must come clean and be fully transparent about his family's business interests and the real or perceived conflicts of interest the ministerial code says he must avoid.”

Johnson 'completely satisfied' with Chancellor's arrangements

The Treasury said the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministerial interests had confirmed he was “completely satisfied” with the propriety of the Chancellor’s arrangements and that he had “followed the ministerial code to the letter in his declaration of interests”.

Mr Sunak met his wife while they were both studying at Stanford University in the US, and they married in Bangalore in 2009. By then Ms Murty had already started her first company, fashion brand Akshata Designs, but it reportedly folded after three years.

The future Chancellor, who had worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs for three years after graduating from Oxford University, worked for a hedge fund called The Children’s Investment Fund Management when he returned from Stanford, then with former colleagues he set up a new fund, Theleme Partners, from 2010 until he became an MP in 2015.

Mr Sunak and his wife have a grace and favour flat in Downing Street, but they also own a five-bedroomed mews house in Kensington, west London, which they bought for £4.5 million without a mortgage in 2010, and which is now worth around £7 million.

Nearby is a first-floor flat worth around £1 million which is used by friends and family when they come to visit, and their home in Mr Sunak’s Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire is a £2 million Georgian manor house set in 12 acres of land.

During school holidays they family often stay at their £5.5 million penthouse flat in Santa Monica, California.

Ms Murty pays 'full tax on UK income'

A spokesman for Ms Murty said that she pays “full tax on UK income”, though it is unclear how much she earns in the UK because she has been involved in a series of loss-making ventures.

In 2013 she and Mr Sunak set up Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, which invests money in startups and other companies, though Mr Sunak transferred his shares to his wife and resigned as a director when he became an MP in 2015. At the end of 2020 it had liabilities of £226,572.

Papers filed at Companies House state that: “The shareholder has invested over £4.2m to date into young start-up companies with the view to future capital growth and income distributions.

“The distributions receivable from such companies are, by nature, sporadic and may take five to seven years to materialise. As the shareholder will continue to financially support the company for the foreseeable future, the director considers it appropriate to prepare the statutory accounts on a going concern basis.”

Until May last year Ms Murty was a director of her brother’s software firm, Soroco Private Ltd, which lost £10 million last year.

Together with Rupert Lowe, a former Southampton FC chairman and ex-Brexit Party MEP, she is also a director of Digme Fitness Ltd, which is currently in administration.

Ms Murty lists her nationality as Indian and her country of residence as England in her Companies House filings.