In a Commons statement, Mr Cameron – who published details of his own tax return at the weekend – said he believed there was a “strong case” for the Prime Minister, leader of the opposition, chancellor and shadow chancellor to make their tax affairs public, but did not think the same should apply to all MPs.
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Trying to restore his government’s shaken reputation, Cameron insisted that “aspiration and wealth creation are not somehow dirty words” and said Britain was acting to stop evasion in its overseas tax havens.
Mr Cameron eventually admitted he as his wife had sold £30,000-worth of units in the fund shortly before he became Prime Minister, netting them a profit of £19,000.
“I think he has behaved entirely properly throughout and I think numerous criticisms – all of the criticisms really – that have been directed against him, have been wrong”, Michael Gove, a leading member of the “Out” campaign, told Sky News.
Accountants said the move could force companies to be punished for “rogue employees” and may increase the risk burden on firms doing business in Britain, which has already seen lower levels of investment because of uncertainty over whether the country will stay in the European Union at the June 23 vote.
He said the rules over inheritance tax may need to be looked at following the disclosure about the gift from Mr Cameron’s mother. He said millions of Britons had investments in such funds through their workplace pensions.
But he said he had been “angry” over “some deeply hurtful and profoundly untrue allegations” against his father Ian Cameron, who died in 2010.
“No government has done more to make sure we crack down on tax evasion and aggressive avoidance, both here in the United Kingdom and internationally”, he stated.
Next month, Cameron will host the London Anti-Corruption Summit aimed at “driving out corruption in all walks of life”. It also means transparency about who owns which companies and who benefits from it – so called beneficial ownership.
“He’s not behaved improperly in any way and he’s gone further than any prime minister previously in publishing these tax returns”, Conservative minister Dominic Raab told Sky News television, accusing Cameron’s Labour critics of “unsavoury” personal attacks and comparing them to “hyenas”. The Prime Minister said that new laws would also be introduced in the UK.
But Mr Corbyn dismissed the PM’s statement as a “masterclass in the art of distraction” and accused Mr Cameron of failing to appreciate the public anger over the ” scandal of destructive global tax avoidance” revealed by the Panama Papers.
The Chancellor had a total taxable income of £198,738 in 2014/15, including £44,647 in the form of dividends from Osborne & Little, the wallpaper firm co-founded by his father, Sir Peter Osborne.
But any hope he might draw a line under the row was short-lived, as local media zeroed in on a gift of 200,000 pounds ($282,500) Cameron received from his mother in 2011.
LONDON-U.K. Treasury chief George Osborne published details of his tax returns Monday, the second senior government minister to do so here amid an intensifying debate over transparency in politics sparked by the so-called Panama papers.
The documents showed that he paid £18,912 income tax on earnings of £70,795.
In Britain, the Panama Papers sparked a furor shot through with the national obsessions of privilege and class.
April 2016: “I will be publishing the information that goes into my tax return, not just for this year but the years gone past because I want to be completely open and transparent about these things”.
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Labour lawmaker Dennis Skinner was forced to leave the chamber when he refused a request by the parliamentary speaker to withdraw his characterization of Cameron as “dodgy Dave”. “Do what you like”, Skinner said, before leaving to calls of “bye, bye” from Conservative lawmakers.
