Keir Starmer paid £54,718 in tax last year

The two prime ministers who preceded Sunak – Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, who held the post for less than two months – did not publish their tax returns.

Why am I not surprised 

As a QC and Head of the CPS/Director of Public Prosecutions he will have made a LOT more than this, so yeah, whatever. A KC (as they are now) can easily make a few hundred grand a year, a lot more in some specialist areas. Even now he’s PM his pay is “only” £160k.

I’m no massive fan of Kier despite still being a member of the party (and watching what I say lest I get “purged”) but one thing I’ll always defend any politician on is their pay.

MPs and even ministers (including the PM) don’t get that much compared to their previous job/career.

I’ll gladly kick up a stink if they’re taking backhanders or doing dodgy business while in public office, but their pay is 14,459 on a list of things I could get annoyed with politicians about.

£50k tax on £150k income?

He needs to go to the ukpf sub and start salary sacrificing his income and paying into a sipp

Interesting what Rachel Reeves declared in payments on the register of interests (£14,694) is more than what she declared on this tax summary (£12,372).

Angela Rayner also didn’t declare her income from hosting the LBC radio show but I’m not an expert but do you not have to declare earnings of less than £1,000?

I am quite impressed that Reeve’s published hers too after she said she wouldn’t.

>Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer paid £54,718 in income tax in 2023/24, according to a document released by the government.

>A summary shows he paid the tax on £152,225 of income in the financial year ending 5 April 2024, a period when Labour was in opposition.

>His tax bill in 2022/23 was five times lower than former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s for the same year.

Interesting how much lower of a tax rate Rishi Sunak was paying on his earnings, despite them being about £2 million higher

>The prime minister published the document on Friday, showing he paid a tax bill of £508,308 in the financial year 2022-23 on overall earnings and gains of £2.23m.

>This means he paid an effective tax rate of 23% in the UK – much lower than the top rate of 45% – because some income was taxed at source in the US and the rate of capital gains tax is lower at 20%.

And Jeremy Hunt

>Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, published his tax return at the same time. It showed he paid tax of £117,418 on income of £208,547 plus a capital gain of £208,058.

When people who earn ridiculous amounts of money get to pay a lower % in taxes than those paid a wage through PAYE it’s no wonder that inequality is as bad as it is.

According to our political class, this just isn’t an issue. Even when they’re “having” to cut benefits for the most vulnerable, we leave in place a tax system that ensures those earning *more than they could ever need* are proportionately taxed less than normal people.

“The Conservatives have previously said their leader Kemi Badenoch had no plans to publish details of her 2023/24 tax return.”

Strange that

Sad times when you are pleasantly surprised to discover we have a PM that just straightforwardly pays all the tax he owes

How can we expect great politicians when they get paid so poorly? Anyone with any business acumen would stay in the private sector than go into politics to get paid relatively poorly, get picked apart by the press, have their personal lives scrutinised etc.

Starmer will not have had a true day off since he became PM. He’s on-call 24/7 and even lives at his office. Yes, he gets driven everywhere, gets free bed and board, gets a lot of perks etc., but there’s no way you could pay me enough to do it.