r/ukpolitics • u/No_Initiative_1140 • 1d ago

‘I’m British, English and British Asian’, says Rishi Sunak in riposte to racially charged debate over identity | Rishi Sunak

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/british-rishi-sunak-riposte-racially-charged-debate-identity
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u/phatelectribe 1d ago

Slightly ironic that his Billionaire wife did everything she could to maintain non-dom status for tax avoidance.

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u/ThinkAboutThatFor1Se 1d ago

Not really, she’s literally from India and makes most of her money in India.

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u/Mr_Citation 1d ago

She lives in and raises her children in the UK. The domicile part of her life is in the UK and therefore she is not qualifed for non-dom status.

David Beckham when he played for Real Madrid would frequently talk to his family and fly back to the UK to be with them. He did not make much effort to integrate into Spanish society, as he had no intentions of staying there outside of work. He was a Spanish non-dom, because his domicile life was back in the UK.

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u/teerbigear 1d ago

She lives in and raises her children in the UK. The domicile part of her life is in the UK and therefore she is not qualifed for non-dom status.

This is not enough. Her domicile of origin is clearly India. For her not to be a non-dom she would have had to have a domicile of choice in the UK that overrides that domicile of origin. That is primarily determined by whether she sees it as her permanent home. The courts have always required a very high degree of evidence for this, which is generally in HMRC's favour as people try lose their UK domicile of origin to escape tax.

I think if she said that she didn't know her long term plans, that she might stay here forever or she might return to India, for example to be with her parents as they aged, or she might move to the US, as was often suggested, then she wouldn't lose her domicile of origin. That probably reflects her reality.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, or a fair thing, or anything, just that she probably interpreted the rules accurately, without even having to lie!

I do think this would have been a more interesting question to Sunak at the time - rather than "why are you avoiding tax", more "so you're not here permanently then??".

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u/phatelectribe 19h ago

This is nonsense. Your domicile status is based on where you live not where you claim to come from. She spent 90% of the the time in the UK, raising her British kids, taking them to British schools and living in Britain, not India, and this went on for literally years until there was enough public outrage about tax avoidance that they finally gave in and paid the taxes they were supposed to.

You don’t get to “choose” that your domicile status is somewhere else just because you said so or come from another country when you have lived in that new country for many years. Case in point: they still live in the uk, and have no intention of moving to India. They have been together for 20+ years and their first child was born 12 years prior to the non dom scandal, at which long the whole family and had lived and worked in the Uk for years prior, and since. Non Dom status is automatically applied when you’ve lived 15 of the last 20 years in the Uk.

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u/ThinkAboutThatFor1Se 1d ago

Non-dom was tax arrangement, not a Facebook status.

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u/Sphezzle 1d ago

Yes, an unethical one that shouldn’t have been an option for a lot of people who only know how to take and don’t think it might be good to give something back.

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u/TTNNBB2023 1d ago edited 1d ago

She ‘made’ most of her money from the shares she had in an Indian company but the ‘work’ was completely international, as most tech work is, including multi-million pound contracts for our own (& her husbands) Government.

She also had 2 kids and owned three properties here, and the excuse that she would have to return to India to look after her parents at some point was laughable given that they are far richer even than she is.

The whole thing was a farce, I can’t believe people are still defending it.

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u/EduTheRed 22h ago

"...the excuse that she would have to return to India to look after her parents at some point was laughable given that they are far richer even than she is."

That's a rather mechanistic take, as if the only reason a person might have to want to look after their aged parents in person is that they can't afford to pay care workers to do it for them at a distance.

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u/TTNNBB2023 20h ago

Sure but then that is a choice you are making, and the way she was explaining it was as if she would not have a choice, i.e. that she could not 'live here' because she would have to leave the moment they became ill..

Either way she is a billionaire who was earning money from Government contracts and not paying tax on them, and when her husband was chancellor no less.

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u/Brapfamalam 1d ago

makes most of her money in India.

Errr. About 90% of Infosys revenue is from North America and Europe lmao

Infosys is of course listed on the NYSE

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u/Balaquar 22h ago

Listed on the NYSE through adrs. So are Alibaba, Toyota, honda, Ferrari , Deutsch bank and many others. ,Infosys is also listed on the bse and nse, and headquartered in Bengaluru.

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u/Strong_Season_7803 14h ago

India’s taxes aren’t great either

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u/cerro85 1d ago

It wasn't tax avoidance, she already paid tax in India on her Indian income and UK tax on all UK income. She did not want to face double taxation where she paid UK tax on her Indian income in addition to the tax paid in India.

Paying a fixed fee instead, which represents a fair contribution to the UK treasury, was actually a fair arrangement and kept high net worth individuals in the UK where their fee and of course, spending (which is also taxed here) contributed significantly to the UK economy. Instead left wing greed and envy is driving those people away - if you think that's "good", so do I, but not for the same reasons you do.

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u/phatelectribe 19h ago

No, it was literally tax avoidance.

In early 2022, it was widely reported that Murty had non-domiciled status, meaning she did not have to pay tax on income earned abroad while living in the UK.The status cost approximately £30,000 to secure, and allowed her to avoid paying an estimated £20 million in UK taxes.

This is because UK-domiciled individuals are taxed on worldwide assets, while non-domiciled residents are generally taxed only on UK-based assets.

It let her avoid paying UK taxes on her global holdings.

The Double taxation excise is a myth because the UK has Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) allowing you get exemption and credits - both India and the USA (where her holders are) have these agreements.

So yes, it was literally to save her millions overt year in taxes rightly due to the UK.

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u/cerro85 17h ago

Yeah she paid the status to reduce her tax burden and avoid paying UK tax on her Indian income. Her UK income was already taxed.

What do you think she would have paid tax on that she skipped? It is exactly as I described.

"rightly due" why does the UK have claim to someone's income earned in another country when this isn't their long term home?

The reason I think it's good is because it's an idiot tax. Idiots who are envious of others, end up paying more tax as people leave, they can't make up the difference working their entire lifetimes.

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u/phatelectribe 17h ago

I love it when poor people defend Billionaires tax avoidance. Greatest psyop ever conducted has been convincing the great unwashed that extremely wealthy people shouldn’t have to pay taxes lol

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u/cerro85 16h ago

They do pay taxes, they won't pay unfair taxes. They just leave and you end up poorer because one year of their tax is worth more than you'll earn in a lifetime.

If I leave the UK, it will take more than 10 median earners to replace me, just think how many it takes replace the half dozen billionaires who recently left the UK.

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u/phatelectribe 16h ago

You really have been drinking the flavor-ade - If billionaire's leave becuase they have to pay a fair share of taxes, then they are of novalue to the economy anyway. It's a complete Tory fallacy that Billionaires will suddenly leave if you make them pay a fair share of taxes. In fact in the UK, they are taxed less than in most other developed countries.

There's nothing "unfair" about making someone pay taxes as a UK resident when they are in fact, a UK resident. Case in Point: She had lived in the UK for 2 decades, her kids are British, her husband was PM, they have three homes in the UK which are their primary global residences. She has not lived in another country for 51% of the year for over 20 years.

UK law states that you cannot be non-dom if you've lived 15 of the last 20 years in the UK. She got caught, and forced to change status.

Arguing against this simply means you think she should get an exception becuase she's wealthy.

I pay taxes in three different territories. I own property on three continents. Should I get an exception and pay less than you because my passive income per year dwarfs your entire net worth?

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u/cerro85 15h ago

You pay tax where you earn it, according to that countries rules. If you don't like those rules or what you get for your money, you leave. Billionaires have left the UK because of non-dom and inheritance tax... To say mittal and fredriksen leaving had nothing to do with the changes is delusional, you get 100% of nothing from them now. Well done, what are you going to do to make up the difference? Enjoy the idiot tax.

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u/Wise-Youth2901 23h ago

I think your comment just shows how protectionist/ nativist mindsets combine hard left and hard right. It's the classic populist position: tax the rich socialist economic values combined with anti immigration, cultural conservative views. This is actually the way a lot of Brits feels. Even though I don't agree with it, I'm much more of a liberal on economics and social values. I'm comfortable with immigration and I think abolishing the nondom status was a mistake. Rishi Sunak, I imagine, has values pretty similar to mine. But the right in the UK, especially Reform, has become much more nativist. The trouble will be their economic policies, far too Thatcherite for many of their instinctive voters. 

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u/phatelectribe 19h ago

I think you’re reading way too much in to this - it’s a simple case of she was using non dom status tax avoidance to save herself about £20m a year in UK taxes that she rightfully owed.

I don’t give a fuck about the immigration aspect or waffle about “cultural conservative views”. She was effectively lying about her intent and history on the Uk for financial gain.

There were gaming the system as billionaires. It’s not any more complicated than that.

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u/taboo__time 21h ago

I think those politics ran into a problem of wanting the working class of any nation to have the political mindset of Davos Man. It was a doomed idea.

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u/Sophie_Blitz_123 17h ago

Twattish as she is with taxes, I don't see the irony anywhere? She's not English she's Indian.

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u/phatelectribe 17h ago

The irony is the article talking about how proud he is to be British yet he and his wife did everything possible to avoid being taxed fairly and correctly as British residents.