Labour calls on Sunak to reveal non-dom status cost

Labour has ramped up its pressure on Rishi Sunak by demanding he shares details on the costs of Britain's controversial non-dom status following the sacking of Tory chair Nadhim Zahawi over his tax affairs.

- ADAM FORREST

Sir Keir Starmer's party has urged the government to publish details on whether it has considered scrapping non-dom tax status by the end of February - labelling the loophole "outdated and unfair".

The issue hit the headlines in April last year when The Independent revealed that Mr Sunak's wife Akshata Murty had held non-dom tax status while he was chancellor. She later renounced the special arrangement.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in November that he had asked the Treasury to look into how much money could be raised from scrapping the special status, which allows people living in the UK to avoid domestic tax on overseas income.

Labour will use a humble address motion - an archaic parliamentary procedure - today to demand all analysis on the impact of ending non-dom status by 28 February. "Labour will clear up 13 years of sleaze, abolish non-dom status, and provide the transparency the British people deserve," said junior shadow Treasury minister James Murray.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank previously estimated that scrapping non-dom status would be worth around £3bn a year. But Mr Hunt has said he wanted to encourage rich people to stay and "spend their money here".

It comes as Mr Sunak tries to draw a line under the Zahawi tax saga, amid accusations from Labour that his government is now "drowning in sleaze".

The prime minister insisted yesterday that he had acted "pretty decisively" by sacking the Tory chair for breaching the ministerial code over his tax affairs, as he vowed to restore "integrity in politics".