British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday sacked Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi over what he called a “serious breach” of the ministerial code on tax returns.
In a letter to Nadhim Zahawi, Rishi Sunak wrote that he was forced to act after promising at the start of his term that his government would have “integrity, professionalism and accountability at all levels”.
The British Prime Minister this week ordered an urgent inquiry into the issue of the Conservative Party chairman’s tax returns after Nadhim Zahawi, minister without portfolio in the executive branch, admitted over the weekend that he had paid several million dollars in unpaid taxes At the time, he was in charge of the country’s treasury, but said he paid quickly after discovering the tax error, admitting it was “involuntary”.
Nadhim Zahawi, founder of research site YouGov, acknowledged the dispute with the country’s tax authorities, but argued that his error was “negligent and unintentional”.
The British press reported that the tax settlement reached nearly five million pounds (almost 5.7 million euros), debt related to the polling company YouGov, which he founded in 2000.
It was when he became finance minister last summer, a position he held between July and September, that, he explained, “questions arose” about his “fiscal affairs”, particularly about the shares in his company owned from his father.
Nadhim Zahawi headed the UK Treasury in the final months of Boris Johnson’s term as prime minister.
The Labor Party, Britain’s main opposition party, called for the resignation of Zahawi, whose position it considered “untenable”, and urged the prime minister to say what he knew about the matter.
“This whole story is a blow to public confidence, with a minister responsible for the country’s finances asking the public to pay their taxes, when apparently he himself has not,” criticized Labour’s number two, Angela Rayner at the time.
Source: DN
