Reform UK’s Richard Tice invested millions into offshore tax haven property empire

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Reform UK’s Richard Tice invested millions into offshore tax haven property empire
Reform UK’s Richard Tice invested millions into offshore tax haven property empire

The multi-millionaire businessman admits he set up a family trust in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey more than three decades ago, but rejects claims he undermined the British government

Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice put millions of pounds worth of shares in his property empire in an offshore trust, the Mirror can reveal.

The multi-millionaire businessman admits he set up a family trust in the Channel Islands tax haven of Jersey more than three decades ago. 

He told the Mirror he created it during a two year stint working in Paris in his mid-20s when it was “unclear if I would ever come back to the UK”. But he kept it offshore when he moved back to Britain in 1991 and only moved the trust from Jersey to the UK “five years ago .. give or take” despite living in here throughout those 28 years.

Tice said the trust, called the RJS Tice Family Settlement, was set up to avoid being “double taxed” on his “international investments”.
He would not tell us what "international investments" were in the trust. But in 2016, when it was still offshore in Jersey, Tice transferred one million of his shares in his UK property business Quidnet Reit Limited into the trust.

Quidnet owns £32m worth of commercial property in the UK and the trust now owns a 17% stake which is worth around £3m. Tice told us the beneficiaries of the trust were his three children with his ex-wife and insisted they are all UK taxpayers like him.

The trust was listed by Tice’s company Quidnet as having an address in Jersey as recently as July 2021. Tice said this was just a “correspondence address” and that he had already brought the trust onshore to the UK. But our investigation with the Good Law Project raises awkward questions for Mr Tice and his Reform UK party who present themselves as patriots standing up against “elites”. 

Jo Maugham, of the Good Law Project, said: "If you really love your country you pay your taxes. You want young people to be well educated and older people to be cared for. You want a decent police force and your armed forces veterans looked after. You don’t have a family trust in a tax haven.”

Tax avoidance is legal and there is no suggestion that Tice has been evading tax, which is illegaTice, who was privately educated at Uppingham School where boarding fees cost nearly £48,000 a year, has channelled more than £2m in loans and donations to Reform UK. He was its leader from 2021 until June, when he was replaced by Nigel Farage, who was also privately educated at a school where boarding fees cost more than £55,000 a year.

The Mirror has previously revealed that Farage set up an offshore trust in the Isle of Man. When we confronted him, Farage said it was a "mistake" and that he had never used it. Last year, Tice and his partner Isabelle Oakeshott denied having money held offshore and Tice claimed it would be libellous to suggest he had.

They were hosting an episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored when union boss Steve Hedley claimed "you and your mates .. have got massive tax breaks, you’re offshoring money".

Tice responded: "What are you talking about? Steve, you have no idea what you are talking about." Journalist Oakeshott said: "Hang on a minute, you were talking about us two. You said you and your mates."

Pushed on whether they had money offshore, Oakeshott said: "Absolutely nothing whatsoever. Although frankly I’d quite like to have it offshore because I don’t think my taxes are well used in this country." Tice said: "Why don’t you stop libelling people."

We asked Tice why he accused Hedley of libel, he told us: “Because he was alleging/insinuating illegal activity.” We have found a separate company registered in Jersey linked to Tice. Gellymill Limited, with the same Jersey office address as the trust, lent £125,000 to Quidnet in 2022.

Tice told us he was not a director of Gellymill but admitted: “Gellymill is under my ultimate control.” Mr Tice was elected as the MP for Boston and Skegness in last month’s general election and is required to declare details of his financial interests, which will be published later this month.

The rules state that MPs must register "formal unpaid roles such as an unpaid directorship, a directorship of a company not currently trading, or a trusteeship".

They must also declare any companies that they own more than 15% of, or shares worth more than £70,000. Mr Tice initially told us he was not declaring Gellymill as he is “not a director so not needed”.

He later added that “as you have asked and taken an interest, I have voluntarily declared to Parliament Authorities the Family Settlement trust which includes Gellymill, even though strictly according to the rules I do not have to”. Asked about his trust in Jersey, he said: "It’s been relocated to the UK.

"I was living abroad at the time back in 1990 and it was unclear if I would ever come back to the UK. It is very simple. The reason for the Jersey trust was to avoid double taxation on international investments as I have been an international businessman for much of my career but always UK taxpayer. I have always been a UK taxpayer, as have my children. It was set up when I was living in Paris."

We asked whether any other assets were in the trust and he did not tell us. We also asked why Tice had moved the trust to the UK five years ago but he did not respond.

After campaigning with Leave.EU and the Brexit Party , in 2019 he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament. He reportedly split with his wife around that time, shortly after a two-year HMRC probe into his tax affairs in 2016 and 2017 which, he claims, found he had overpaid tax.

Professor Richard Murphy of Sheffield University Management School said: "Tice obviously continued to use an offshore structure to manage some of his affairs, including parts associated with companies that seem to have been located in the UK, even though he must have known all the problems associated with tax havens. There are only two reasons to use tax havens. One is to secure secrecy, but that was obviously not his goal here. 

"The other is to save tax. You would not incur the expense otherwise. That must be his aim in this case. There is nothing illegal about this, assuming all the right steps have been followed.

“But the question still remains as to why would anyone who says they believe so strongly in the government of the UK that they want to be an MP ever went about willingly undermining UK government tax revenues by establishing a trust in this way? His public and private positions seem very hard to reconcile."

But Tice said: “No government revenues have been lost. If anything, the opposite. As an international businessman I have attracted investment jobs and growth into the UK.”

James Smith

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