Peter Byrne/PA
No fewer than four Conservative MPs have declined to disclose whether they paid capital gains tax on profits made from the sale of their own taxpayer-funded second homes.
A Mirror investigation has revealed that David Tredinnick, Eleanor Laing, Shailesh Vara and Maria Miller raked in a combined £5.4 million between them from flogging houses funded by the public.
They have all declined to comment on whether they paid any tax on the profits they made.
The revelations have come to light after deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner faced scrutiny over a £48,000 profit she made selling a former council house before she became an MP and an alleged capital gains tax bill of a mere £1,500.
Jess Phillips has said the “sheer hypocrisy is off the scale”.
“It beggars belief for the Tories to demand a witch-hunt over a decade-old ex-council house sale. Yet they’re refusing to say if several of their own MPs paid tax on the profits from selling taxpayer-funded homes, while they were actually sitting in Parliament.”
Police are currently investigating whether Labour’s deputy leader broke electoral law after Tory allegations that she may have given false information about her main residence a decade ago.
Rayner has promised to resign if she is found to have committed a crime over the accusations, but said she “followed the rules at all times”.
Speaking to BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Yvette Cooper that Rayner is “very keen” to set out the facts to police and HMRC.
She said: “It allows her to set out all the facts – not the sort of gossip, not the different allegations that we’ve had from Conservative MPs.
“We understand this is the run-up to local elections, we have seen this before as we saw with the Durham case as well.
“This is obviously about her family arrangements, her personal finances, and that’s really how it should be dealt with instead.”
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