LONDON: In a bid to defuse row after Panama Leaks, British Prime Minister David Cameron Sunday released his tax details.
The row started over his father’s offshore business, but he faced further questions over money he received from his mother.
Cameron took the unprecedented step of publishing a summary of six years of his tax returns, and revealed that he got a 200,000 pound ($280,000, 240,000 euros) gift from his mother, on top of 300,000 pound in inheritance from his late father. The 2011 gift from Mary Cameron raised questions about whether it was an attempt to dodge inheritance tax later down the line.
The release came a day after Cameron admitted he had mishandled the situation, telling party activists: “blame me”, while hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside Downing Street demanding his resignation. The gift was tax-free, and would only become liable to inheritance tax of up to 40 percent if Cameron’s mother dies within seven years of handing over the money. Cameron’s Downing Street office said the gift came on top of the inheritance from his father, with his mother attempting to “balance” the sums received by her four children.
Cameron admitted on Thursday that he had held shares in his late father’s Bahamas-based investment fund, which cropped up in the leaked documents from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca.
He and his wife bought the stake in Blairmore Holdings for #12,497 in 1997 and sold it for #31,500, four months before he became prime minister in 2010.
