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WISE gives you the real exchange rate like the one you usually see on Google, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Join millions of customers managing their money with WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. Teasancy Supply. From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Luke Jones.
There are three certainties in life, death, taxes, and the Sunday Times tax list. The younger sibling of the rich list, this is the annual rundown of HMRC's BFFs, the top tax payers in the land. And at number one, we have
So Chris Hone, of the first time he's taught the Sunday Times tax list, you might not have heard of him, hedge fund manager, interesting background. The son of a Jamaican car mechanic went on to do very, very well in the city. You might remember that he had a £337 million divorce settlement once upon a time from his first wife, Jamie, and also gave £200,000 to Extinction Rebellion a while ago.
But every year, I do find it extraordinary. We have such a bizarre, strange mix sometimes with people on this list, everything from hedge fund tycoons to people who make pillows and pasties. And each year for some of these types of taxes does tell quite an interesting story about where we are as a country, who is making money, which parts of the economy are growing and which aren't.
As the deadline for settling up with the tax man draws near, we've comforting tales of those likely forking out a lot more than you, and concerning stories about which industries are clearly booming. The story today, the controversial money fueling Britain.
Well, I can't get my head around the Sunday Times Rich List and how you compile that. But in terms of this tax list, just explain first of all what it is we're looking at before we delve into it. And how on earth you go about compiling it as well.
The majority of what I'm doing is I'm trawling through companies filed with companies house and your reports of public companies as well. Often with people I'm looking at what I can see when their salary is disclosed or a corporation tax bill is made public.
or also other types of taxes, things like employers, national insurance. Some of these businesses, some of these entrepreneurs are going above and beyond what they would have to usually under the law disclose in terms of what taxes they're paying because they feel they want their contribution to be recognised.
But also, I'm finding that because we've been going a while now, we've been going for seven years with this work, that people are picking up the phone, sending us emails, even sharing their tax returns, would you believe it? Because they feel that it's right that their contribution is recognised. It's a source of national honour, Robert.
Um, I think we've all know, we've all heard those refains, haven't we, of business people, wealthy people, moaning about how much tax they pay. And then often not just actually disclosing it. Well, when we started this project all those years ago, we thought it would be interesting to try and get a handle on what was right, because there were a lot of people saying on one hand that the rich, they don't pay any tax.
All rich people don't pay any tax. And then there were clearly lots of wealthy people, a successful entrepreneur saying, well, hang on, I do pay a lot of tax. And so we were keen to see, well, who's right? And what we've found is, yes, there are wealthy people who do contribute a lot to the public finances. We had 15 people this year where we were confident that they were contributing more than 100 million pounds to the public finances. But yes, on the other hand,
there are people who will feature very high up on the Sunday Times Rich List, where we can't be confident that they're contributing huge sums. Yes, and imagine for a moment that I'm an incredibly wealthy person who contributes to the public finances in an enormous way. Let's just define exactly what you are counting in terms of my contribution. Is it just the personal taxes I pay or is it also
the taxes that the cafe I own pays as well. So we would count the taxes paid by a business that you owned in proportion with your ownership. So if you Luke Enterprises owned 80% of that cafe, we would count that 80% of the corporation tax bill, 80% of the other taxes that that company paid was your
Now, why do we do that? It's a legitimate question. Some people think, well, hang on, business tax is a bit different. But we're talking about people, don't forget, who own these businesses, control these businesses, have the ability to push them offshore or structure themselves in a way where they pay less tax. And yet these people don't do that. So we thought it was important to recognise that.
And you're not the HMRC. So there are some people and some businesses that you maybe might have missed that you can't get access to because of the nature information. So if you're a very wealthy person, you pay a lot of tax listening to this and you're flicking through the list going, well, hang on, where's my entry? You know, you might not be there for good reason.
Yes, I mean, we're very careful to say we look at identifiable tax tax, but we are confident that we can see and we can attach to an individual or family. We're not, this isn't Norway. In Norway, anyone can apply to see anyone else's tax return.
bizarrely I'm not sure how the British Great British public would feel about that to be honest but we're quite private aren't we about our finances I control through accounts I can look at public documents but also I have found that people do approach us as well and we've got to be careful that what we're what we're being told is is accurate and correct and we'd much rather be estimating on the low side be conservative in terms of what we're estimating attention to these people then on the high side.
So looking at this list and comparing it to the previous six or so years worth of tax lists, what strikes you about this one? How is it different if it is? So the tax take this year from the hundred individuals and families that we look at went down this year dipped under five billion across the hundred people, the hundred entries. Now, that's not great news for the Chancellor at a time of severe tension in the public finances when the cost of servicing our national debt has
has gone up now why is that because these people are using lots of clever tax avoidance mechanisms actually is a bit more straightforward than that generally speaking this was a stickier time for the economy a lot of the profits of these people's companies went down and profits go down corporation tax receipts go down so that is certainly a big
big part of the puzzle. But there was also there's another factor, which is Jim and Bernie Eccleston and his great row of the tax man. Yes. That fraud case. Well, last year, there was that big payment that he made more than 600 million pounds to settle that case. And that gave us sort of artificial boost to the tax list last year to the government's revenues. There isn't that this year. He's not paying that again. And so as a result, that's partly part of a story as well.
Okay, so we don't have the Eccleston effect this year, but looking at this list, the industry dominating the top of the list is not one that I expected. Explain what it is and what accounts for it being there.
So I thought it'd be interesting to look at the total volume of tax across the southern list. Look at which industries seem to contribute the most. Gambling came top. Gambling. Gambling, yes. And when you think about it, there is a bit of a logic to this actually. For three years, the list was topped by one family, the Denise Coates and her family behind Bet365, that online betting Goliath. She has an enormous salary, doesn't she?
She does, and that's a big part of it. So she actually took a pay cut this year, Luke. She played us just under just under 100 million pounds rather than the 220 odd of the year before. Now, I've been told by people close to the company that actually, rather than paying themselves all in dividends, which incurs taxes at a lower rate, one of the reasons she pays herself a higher salary is that she wants to be seen to be paying a lot of tax. But that 365
And the coaches, they don't just pay taxes on their salaries, taxes on their dividends, they don't just pay corporation tax, but because we're a betting company, they pay this sort of band of this group of different gambling specific levies betting duties and other things. And that accounts for a huge part of their number.
Actually, the coaches, they top the tax list for 2020, 2021, 2022, but they've slipped down to three this year, but they still do contributing £265 million to the exchequer this year. When you say the coach's family, it's not just Denise, there's two others as well, aren't there?
That's right. So there's John, her brother, who she started that business with in a porta cabin, pitched in a car park in Stoke-on-Trent all those years ago in about the year 2000. And then her father, Peter, who was an old-school gambling man, really. He's still going strong is Peter, but he he ran the family's betting shops. And Denise took them over in the late 90s after university. And it was her.
and very much her who saw the possibilities of online gambling that you could, if she stayed in bricks and mortar, bookie shops, then they could build a chain, they could possibly build a very big chain, but the internet would allow them to build this global online operation, which they have. So that's the bet 365 lot. What's one of the other big betting companies on this list?
Well, above the coaches this year, and it's the first time I think they've been above the coaches of the Dun brothers, Fred and Peter Dunne. Best known for, Betfred, that high street chain. Is Betfred named after Fred Dunne? Is that why it's called Betfred? Exactly. There you go.
So interesting story grew up in a very poor part of Greater Manchester. Their father was an illegal bookie. It's well known that he was taking bets before betting shops were effectively utilised in the early 60s. And they used to work for him, but they went legit. Why did they go legit? Well, a key part of the story of the bet Fred folklore is that they put a bet Fred put a bet on England to win the 1966 World Cup.
At 8-1 he won 200 quid and that was part of his seed funding to buy his first betting shop the next year. There are now 1,300 betting shops in the chain and like that 365, yes it pays corporation tax, yes it pays, it pays employers and national insurance but it pays all these other duties to the exchequer as well and
There will be people who find it vaguely disconcerting the huge sums that we're talking about here and positive in some way that this is an industry that contributes a lot. But at the same time, there will be people listening to this who rightly point out that there is a cost of a public purse of problem gambling as well.
So gambling, massive, massive for the exchequer, very, very important. But there was another part of the economy, another sector, who I weren't expecting. I wasn't expecting to find on the Sunday Times tax list this year. And I have to be honest, somewhat concerning, somewhat disconcerting. Disconcerting, indeed, we will have more from Robert in a moment.
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Robert, you've been taking us through this year's Sunday Times tax list. We've already heard about how well gambling does and how much they contribute to our coffers. But you mentioned a concerning other industry sector that has made appearance in the list this year. What are you on about?
I wasn't expecting to find two asylum hoteliers on the Sunday Times tax list. I have to be honest here. And bear with me on this. These people are on the list because of money that they're getting from the tax payer.
making money out, you know, profiting from, and therefore they're so successful that they're paying a lot of tax that then goes back to the exchequer show. It's almost cashback for the taxpayer in a way, but I'm talking about two people. I'm talking about Alex Langson, who runs Britannia Hotels, many of which of his hotels have been handed over, blocked booked by the home office.
to house those seeking asylum in the UK, and then a very different type of entrepreneur called Graham King, who runs a company called Play Springs. His company earns £1.8 billion a year, largely from housing, feeding and transporting asylum seekers around the south of England and Wales. We've had a lot of asylum seekers coming to the UK for ages, so why this year have they made an appearance?
The profits in Graham King's case have gone up hugely. They've gone up by 60 per cent. Clear Springs' business made a profit of £120 million last year, which was, as I say, 60 per cent up on the year before. When your profits go up, you pay more corporation tax, generally speaking, unless you're indulging in clever financial engineering. Graham King, who you mentioned there, who is he? What's his background?
extraordinary figure really. I mean, this is a guy in his mid 50s, came from Candy Island, his family ran nightclubs and mini camphums, he ran a mini camp firm in his youth luster organised team discos.
And only 12 years ago started putting together this business that has provided this sort of gamut of services for the home office and for local authorities. They're not just housing your asylum seekers, but providing all those services that they need as well in terms of food and transportation and things like that. A very different type of person from the other guy I mentioned, Alex Langson.
who will be gentlemen in his mid 80s now, started out as an estate agent before buying a series of hotels. You might have stayed in one of his hotels, we've had a no Britannia, have you ever come across? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hotels, cheapest chips, you know, it's possible to get a real... Not the lap of luxury, I would suggest.
No, no, I mean, people who say where you get what you pay for, I mean, £27 a night, it's been possible to stay in a Britannia hotel for and rated by which the consumer group as the worst hotel in Britain for wait for it 11 successive years, I believe they're not
They're not luxurious by any stretch of badgeration and he has given over large numbers of his hotels and his chain to the home of his interesting thing. Interesting fact. Alex Langston was himself a refugee to this country. He and his parents fled the Nazi invasion or annexation of Austria in 1938. He was less than one years old at the time and he came to his country. I was initially held in a detention center on the Isle of Man.
And despite a pretty tough start in life has built up this very, very successful property empire. Have Langston or King responded to this in any way? Have they engaged with you or? They don't tend to engage with what we do. I wrote a piece about Langston last year trying to get under the skin of this very mercurial, very
interesting person and yes, three approaches, no interesting in talking to me, unfortunately. But I did manage to get to someone who'd worked for him just as I was dossing the eyes and crossing the teas on that piece. And he made the case, which I think is very interesting, which some listeners might find persuasive was that
It wasn't Langston who went to the home office and wanted to make a lot of money from housing asylum seekers and refugees. It's the home office who came to him and he's providing a service and we do have a problem. We do need decent accommodation to house people who are trying to seek asylum in this country and he is providing that service. And if it's not going to be him, if it's not going to be Graham King making a lot of money from doing so, then who's going to do it? It will be someone else.
And where each of those are on the list in this 100? So, Grant King pops in at number 40 of our run of 100. And Mr Langston is further down at number 87.
That was very good off the tip of your tongue there. If I were to give you random numbers, would you be able to name who was on them? I shall test you. This sounds dangerous. Both of these examples had quite interesting insights then into our economy, namely the gambling industry and housing the many asylum seekers that make it to the UK and the billions that each of those two sectors generate and churn through.
What does that tell us? Is that typical of what the list is telling us or does the rest of the list takes in a different direction?
It is a really eclectic mix. There's no doubt about it. I mean, you have billionaire hedge fund managers. You have aristocrats like the Duke of Westminster sitting on top of, you know, 300-year-old property empires. You have JK Rowling, the Harry Potter creator, Ed Sheeran, Queen this year, pop up, which is, well, it was a really surprising, surprising one. As in the band, Queen. Band as in the band. HTV. Not the late Her Majesty.
No, and Queen was one of the, another one, one of the ones that surprised me simply because, wow, this is a band that started in the early 70s. The lead singer died in the early 90s. So it's been going, the band been going for twice as long. We're out the front band that has been with it. The other, the bass guitarist retired in the late 90s. And yet it remains this incredible
incredible money making machine and they paid themselves, the band members paid themselves a dividend of £19.6 million last year. We can see there was a big corporation tax bill as well. So as a result, they make it onto the list. So it is a really eclectic mix. But one of the things I do think very interesting and particularly at this political moment and considering what's been what was announced in the recent budget is the number of
family businesses, often quite unheralded, perhaps. Some people say backbone of the economy, hidden heroes of the economy, use whatever language you like. But making often quite mundane products, pillows, we've got the UK's biggest pillow manufacturer on the list this year, pet food, things like that. And often these are sort of quite
interesting, but quite worthy, but overlooked businesses that are just quietly going about their businesses, not interested in an Instagram profile, but just employing a lot of people, paying a lot of tax and not structuring themselves in a way that other industries sometimes do to lower their tax bills. And just explain what were you hinting at there in terms of how the last budget might affect them going forward in future tax lists?
So you'll be, everyone will, I think remember the way the farmers are very concerned about changes to inheritance tax, mooted in the budget. I think they've done a very good job in raising their concerns. But there's another, there's a very similar thing that's been less reported, less covered.
which is changes to what's called business property relief for inheritance tax purposes. It's a very similar thing to the farmers, so it's essentially that when the owner of the business dies, when it's passed on to his heirs or her heirs, will there be inheritance tax? And at the moment, there is 100% relief on that. And the thinking for that is that not to disrupt the business
not for the business potentially to be sold or broken up to try and keep it going. And that is felt to be good for the employees, for the customers as well. And the chancellor has said that her plan is to cap that relief now.
at £1 million and then anything after that there will be a 20% charge. Now, Sir James Dyson has said that this will, in an article in The Times recently, that this will kill many family businesses. And if I look up and down this list, there are a lot of these family businesses here that would seem to be in scope for that charge. And I think the concern is that in a sort of one-off
hit that the Treasury may be able to take from these companies. You may see some of them go down and not have the opportunity to continue contributing to the Exchequer for many years to come.
Having done this list for seven years now and seeing the interest that it generates, I mean, I think this is arguably more interesting than the the rich list itself. Why do you think that is the case? Why do we give a damn, frankly? It's a really good question, Luke.
I think there are a number of reasons. I think, firstly, there are people at the top of the rich list who don't seem to feature. And I think people are quite interested. Well, they're at the top of the rich list, but hang on, they appear to be on the tax list. So there's that, I think, the curiosity. But I think there's also we uncover so many inspiring stories, I think, of
self-made entrepreneurs along the way. One of my favourite, this year, one of my favourite new entries is Dame Margaret Barber. Of the jackets. Exactly. And well, not just jackets, you see. Now, that's become this sort of global fashion brand. Yes, worn by royalty, but now worn by Bex and Kate Moss and Holly Willoughby and lots of other celebs. She
extraordinary story of her life that she married into the barber family which at the time was this sort of quite duh wax jacket maker overlooking the North Sea up at South Shields. Her husband died in his late twenties from a brain hemorrhage and she found herself a teacher at the time she was.
the biggest shareholder of this company and she could have sold it. She could have carried on teaching. She could have put professional managers in place, but no, she immersed herself in the business and she's gradually turned it into this very, very successful, global and quite cool fashion brand, worn by A-listers and a royalty. And I think
We know readers do connect with the sort of stories behind these people when we're able to dig them out. And that sort of self-made quality as well that we have with many of our tax listers and our rich listers who often come from quite interesting troubled places often who started with not very much worked hard, been lucky and have done very well.
Are you paying more or less tax this year, Robert? I think we all are, aren't we? Those bans have been frozen. The tax thresholds have been frozen. So we all are. And we're talking about a week before the deadline for self-assessment. Have you done yours yet, Luke?
Yes, and I paid it already. Bishmash Posh, no messing around. Rachel Reeves will be very happy with you. I'm doing my bit. Not quite in the top 100 yet, but I'm contributing. Maybe next year. Maybe next year.
And there are about 90 other entries on this list, which of course we can squeeze into this episode. So do check out Robert's full list at thetimes.com if you've got a subscription. This episode was produced by Taryn Segal, the executive producer is Fiona Leach. Sound design was by Tom Burchill and theme composition by Malasetto. The story at thetimes.com is how you can email us with your thoughts, your comments, maybe even your tax returns will have a look. I'm Luke Jones. See you soon.
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