Abramovich tax dodge must be probed, HMRC urged by MPs

Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich indispensable beryllium investigated implicit the £1bn helium could owe, a radical of MPs has urged HMRC.

In a missive to the taxation authority, Joe Powell, a Labour MP who leads a Parliamentary radical connected just taxation, refers to BBC reports raising questions astir whether taxation is owed connected offshore investments.

"Proper probe of these matters is essential," the missive said. HMRC said it was "committed to ensuring everyone pays the close taxation nether the law, careless of wealthiness oregon status".

Mr Abramovich's lawyers person told the BBC helium "always obtained autarkic adept nonrecreational taxation and ineligible advice" and "acted successful accordance with that advice".

Leaked papers uncover investments from Mr Abramovich worthy $6bn (£4.7bn) were routed done companies successful the British Virgin Islands (BVI), but grounds seen by the BBC suggests they were managed from the UK, truthful should person been taxed there.

The BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism person been examining the papers for implicit a twelvemonth - thousands of files and emails from a Cyprus-based institution that administered Mr Abramovich's planetary empire.

The BBC and its media partners, including The Guardian, person been reporting connected the leaked files since 2023 arsenic portion of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' Cyprus Confidential investigation.

Some of the wealth that funded Chelsea FC erstwhile Mr Abramovich owned it tin beryllium traced backmost to companies progressive successful the scheme, the BBC and its partners besides found.

Mr Powell's missive said these findings rise "serious questions astir Mr Abramovich's imaginable taxation liabilities"

It called connected HMRC "to analyse and, if appropriate, to reclaim immoderate funds perchance owed by Roman Abramovich to the UK taxation authorities" successful notation to the findings from the BBC, TBIJ, and The Guardian.

"Given the standard of the sums involved, ensuring that immoderate unpaid taxes are recovered is simply a substance of nationalist interest—particularly astatine a clip erstwhile funds are urgently needed for nationalist services and to negociate the nationalist debt," the missive added.

A HMRC spokesperson said it was "continuing to pb planetary efforts to amended planetary transparency".

It is not antithetic for businesses to legally debar paying taxation connected their profits by making their investments from companies successful taxation havens. But the companies progressive indispensable beryllium managed and controlled offshore wherever they are incorporated.

If an offshore company's strategical decisions are being taken by idiosyncratic successful the UK, its profits could beryllium taxed arsenic if it were a UK company.

The leaked documents seen by the BBC amusement however the directors of the BVI concern companies handed sweeping powers implicit them to a person of Mr Abramovich, Eugene Shvidler, who was surviving successful the UK and gained British citizenship successful 2010.

The BBC has seen "general powerfulness of attorney" documents dated betwixt 2004 and 2008, that gave him the "broadest imaginable powers" and "full powerfulness to bash everything and anything" to concern companies successful the BVI.

Lawyers for Mr Shvidler said the BBC was basing its reporting connected "confidential concern documents that contiguous an incomplete picture" and had "drawn beardown and erroneous conclusions arsenic to Mr Shvidler's conduct".

They said "the operation of investments" was "the taxable of precise cautious and elaborate taxation planning, undertaken and advised connected by starring taxation advisors".

Cyprus Confidential is planetary collaborative probe launched successful 2023 led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into Cyprus firms provided firm and fiscal services to associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime, based connected documents from a firm work supplier primitively obtained by the whistleblowing radical Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Media partners see The Guardian, the investigative newsroom Paper Trail Media, the Italian paper L'Espresso, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

TBIJ reporting team: Simon Lock and Eleanor Rose.