A director of the Conservative Party’s property portfolio has landed a £4.5 million tax bill of his own owing to a “careless” VAT declaration.
The Good Law Project has revealed that a company owned by property tycoon Dr Christopher Moran has been hit with a multi-million-pound bill for unpaid VAT on an apartment block in Chelsea.
Realreed Limited was admonished over the declaration of its VAT status in relation to short-term lets on over 200 self-serviced apartments in the Chelsea Cloisters building.
The block of apartments has been steeped in controversy over recent years, with a Sunday Times expose revealing that it had hosted widespread trafficking and prostitution – including in many apartments under the direct management of Realreed.
Despite this, the Conservative Party has kept Moran on as a director of its real-estate arm, C&UCO Properties, which is under the ultimate control of Rishi Sunak.
The Tories have also kept £140,000 of donations from Realreed and £410,000 from Moran pledged individually and through his companies Christopher Moran & Co and Golden Lane Securities.
Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham, said: “Whilst the Tories hound a working class woman, Angela Rayner, over £1,500 which tax experts don’t think she owes, a company controlled by Rishi Sunak has as its director a man who failed to pay £4.5m in tax on apartments used for trafficking and prostitution.
“It’s always one rule for the rich and another for the rest of us, isn’t it?”
Responding to the Mirror, who worked jointly on the investigation, lawyers for Moran and Realreed say the VAT proceedings against Realreed is “currently subject to an appeal”.
The Sunday Times investigation into prostitution at Chelsea Cloisters represented a “grotesque exaggeration”, they continued, adding that the building has a “strict zero-tolerance policy towards escorts”.
“Chelsea Cloisters takes immediate and firm steps to discourage them,” they said, “and, where escorts have indeed been found to be using its rooms, taking immediate (but of course lawful and humane) steps to evict them.”
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