Don’t want my tax status to be distraction for him: Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murthy

Featured TimesApril 9, 2022

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According to reports, Akshata Murthy has agreed to stop evading tax through her non-domicile status as Rishi Sunak has come under fire for family links with Infosys.

UK finance minister Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murthy has agreed that she would not evade British tax on her foreign income, Reuters reported. Akshata Murthy owns around 9% of Infosys stake, the IT behemoth founded by her father Narayana Murthy. This has put Rishi Sunak in a spot for more than one reason. While Sunak urged UK companies to not do business in Russia, Infosys continued its operation in Moscow. Amid this, reports revealed that Akshata Murthy does not pay a tax on her foreign earnings to the British government as she is a non-domicile, indicating that Sunak who is increasing the tax burden on people might be enjoying the benefit of his wife’s tax-evasion status.

Akshata Murthy on Friday issued a statement stating she would pay British tax on her global income, including dividends and capital gains, for the 2021/22 tax year and in future. “I understand and appreciate the British sense of fairness and I do not wish my tax status to be a distraction for my husband or to affect my family,” she said.

Her spokesperson earlier claimed there was nothing illegal in what Akshata Murthy was doing. It was claimed that as Akshata is an Indian, she has a non-domicile status in UK and pays tax to the government on her income in the UK.

Coming under fire, Rishi Sunak said his wife’s financial investments were separate from his, and that questions about his father-in-law’s wealth and his wife’s tax arrangements were politically motivated attempts to damage him. “To attempt to smear him, to smear my wife to get at me is awful, right?,” he told The Sun newspaper.

What is non-domicile status?

Non-domiciled status exempts more than 75,000 mostly foreign nationals in Britain from tax on overseas income. This tax status has been available since the French revolution allowing a person born in any other country to pay tax in the UK only on their earning from UK.

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