Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer follows Rishi Sunak in publishing tax return summary

Sir Keir Starmer’s tax return shows he earned around £85,000 in capital gains last year, compared with nearly £1.6m made by Rishi Sunak.

The Labour leader said the earnings were linked to the sale of a house he helped his sister buy, whereas the Prime Minister’s largely came from a US-based investment fund.

Sir Keir released a summary of his tax return on Thursday covering the period he has been Labour leader, in response to Sunak publishing his own.

The statement shows the Labour leader made capital gains of £85,466 in the financial year 2021/22, on which he paid £23,930 capital gains tax.

That was on top of £126,154 income for being an MP and Leader of the Opposition.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister published his long-awaited tax documents, showing that he paid more than £1m in UK tax over the previous three financial years on earnings totalling £4.7m.

Sunak made nearly £2m through income and capital gains in 2021/22.

His income from dividends was £172,415, and from capital gains was £1.6m.

For that same financial year, it showed that he paid £432,493 in tax.

The tax return showed he paid a lower effective rate of tax than if his income had been mostly from employment.