Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty vows she will pay UK tax on worldwide income

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty has said in a statement she will pay UK tax on her worldwide income following the revelation of her non-dom status.

A furious row erupted over Ms Murty’s non-dom status in what the Chancellor has called a “smear campaign” against them.

Now the Chancellor’s wife has said she will pay UK tax on her worldwide income because she does not want her non-dom status to be a “distraction” for her husband.

“For this reason, I will no longer be claiming the remittance basis for tax,” she said in a statement.

“This means I will now pay UK tax on an arising basis on all my worldwide income, including dividends and capital gains, wherever in the world that income arises.

“I do this because I want to, not because the rules require me to.

“These new arrangements will begin immediately and will also be applied to the tax year just finished.”

Although a spokesperson for Ms Murty has said she pays UK taxes on all her UK income, they also confirmed she pays £30,000 a year for non-dom tax status which means she pays a potentially much lower rate of tax on income earned overseas.

It has been reported she received £11.6 million in dividends in the past year from Infosys, the Indian tech company founded by her billionaire father Narayana Murthy.

Thursday night Sunak defended his wife as he said she had not broken any rules and fully supported her choice to remain domiciled in India.

He told The Sun: “Every single penny that she earns in the UK she pays UK taxes on, of course she does. And every penny that she earns internationally... She would pay the full taxes on that.

“To smear my wife to get at me is awful... And if she was living here and didn’t just happen to be married to me, this obviously would not be at all relevant.”

Earlier on Friday, Sunak admitted he held a US green card while he was working as the Chancellor before returning it.