In 2025, Reform’s Richard Tice called for Angela Rayner to resign over £40,000 of stamp duty she supposedly didn’t pay (she’s since claimed she was legally correct not to do so). Now, investigators have uncovered that Tice himself may have a £91k skeleton in his closet:
Exclusive: Richard Tice’s company broke the law by failing to pay tens of thousands of pounds in tax on dividends that were paid to him and his offshore trust.
He received at least £91,000 in excess payments as a result of the failure.https://t.co/9g6M2jmbUT
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) April 11, 2026
And Tice is far from the only Reform bigwig accused of swindling the taxman.
Hypocrite
On Friday 5 September 2025, Angela Rayner resigned after it became clear her housing scandal had broke Labour’s code of ethics. As the Mirrorreported at the time:
In a heated BBC interview, Mr Tice described the Deputy Prime Minister’s position as “morally bankrupt” and “completely indefensible”.
Well, I’d anticipate his resignation as deputy leader of his party imminently. That’s how this works right? I know he’d never tolerate two tier justice. https://t.co/ZlPHiEnmey
— Jonathan Brash MP (@JonathanBrash) April 11, 2026
Now, the Times’ Gabriel Pogrund has exposed the following about Tice:
The payments were made by Quidnet Reit, Tice’s firm which we have previously reported used an unusual structure to lawfully a) avoid £600k in corporation tax, b) channel dividends to largely tax-free entities. However, this relates to the company failing to meet its obligations.
It should have deducted 20% withholding tax before paying dividends – in cash and shares – to Tice and his trust, then registered in Jersey.
It did not do so, according to analysis of company filings and stock exchange reports.
What Pogrund is saying is that we already knew that Tice’s company was using dubious yet legal means to avoid paying tax. Now, however, investigators have shown that the company has also not paid tax that it legally should have done.
Pogrund continued:
The result is that at least £91k was not withheld and sent to HMRC, when it ought to have been.
HMRC is still owed the money and the company is vulnerable to investigation as a result.
If you walked into a shop and stole £91k worth of Freddos, you wouldn’t be “vulnerable to investigation”; you’d be banged up within minutes, and the nation’s gutter rags would be calling for you to be hung.
In other words, we’re all being fleeced, and Reform want to be the ones holding the shears.
Pogrund continued:
Tice says we are reporting on a “technicality” and that this is a non-story.
He appears to be saying that, because he ultimately paid income tax on erroneously large dividends, HMRC received the same amount of tax as it would have done had the company paid tax as required.
But any tax Tice or his trust did or did not later pay is not legally relevant: his company was required to pay withholding tax under the Real Estate Investment Trusts (Assessment and Recovery of Tax) Regulations 2006 – and didn’t. It still owes any tax it did not pay.
Since Pogrund put the story out, the amount of unpaid tax has actually risen to £100k:
.@DanNeidle verified our analysis and subsequently conducted his own findings showing there were other dividends on which tax was not deducted – taking the amount of unpaid tax beyond the £100k mark.
His forensic and elegantly presented analysis is up now and I’ll post below.
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) April 11, 2026
Tice has responded to say that he overpaid dividends “due to a technicality”, and that this is:
Hardly a story, just an attempt to smear a successful businessman turned politician giving hope to millions of people.
To be fair to Tice, it’s not wrong to say that a “successful businessman” is one who fiddles their taxes; that’s the big con job we all live in.
Tice also said:
I have paid all tax at the highest rate on all dividends received. HMRC has been paid in full.
Richard Tice is trying to spin this.
He’s broken the law. It’s simple.
And he’s done so in an unpatriotic act of offshoring too. https://t.co/EUPpvhXkRP
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) April 12, 2026
We hope that the authorities put Tice’s claims to the test.
We further hope for a future in which the white collar crime that costs us billions every year is treated with the same seriousness as OAPs protesting genocide:
This shameful farce is exactly why I voted against proscribing Palestine Action.
The Government must bring emergency legislation to end this unlawful ban – which has already been struck down by the High Court.
And the authoritarian crackdown on peaceful protest must end now. pic.twitter.com/6FzdDeFed5
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) April 11, 2026
Reform — Hypocrite(s)
Tice isn’t the only hypocrite in Reform, either. In September 2025, Joe Glenton reported for the Canary that Farage was accused of putting his girlfriend’s house in his girlfriend’s name to avoid tax. This was despite him saying following:
Nigel Farage put his Clacton house in to his girlfriend Laure’s name, avoiding tens of thousands of pounds like Rayner.
But he won’t tell you that.
He already has a property worth about £1m in the village of Downe in Kent, as well as two houses in Lydd-on Sea in the same…
— Reform Party UK Exposed
And as we reported yesterday, one of Reform’s donors was convicted of a “money laundering offence” (later pardoned by president Donald Trump).
Is it just us, or should we be worried that everyone connected to this potential party of government keeps getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar?
Featured image via The Canary
By Willem Moore
From Canary via This RSS Feed.