UK Prime Minister sacks his party chairman over tax charges

LONDON – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sacked the chairman of his ruling Conservative Party on Sunday for a “serious violation” of the ministerial code.

Pressure on Nadhim Zahavi escalated amid accusations that he settled a multi-million dollar tax bill while in charge of the country’s treasury.

In a letter to Zahavi, Sunak wrote that he was forced to act after promising early in his tenure that his government would “be honest, professional and accountable at all levels.”

There were no immediate comments from Zahavi.

Zahavi, founder of voting site YouGov, acknowledged the dispute with the tax authorities but said his mistake was “careless and unintentional.”

British media reported that the settlement was worth almost £5 million ($6.2 million).

Zahavi headed the UK Treasury from July to September 2022, during the final months of Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister. Sunak said the decision came at the end of an investigation into the party chairman’s financial dealings by the government’s independent standards adviser.

Laurie Magnus’s report stated that Zahavi showed “insufficient respect” for the ministerial code and required standards “to be an honest, open and exemplary leader in his own conduct” in public life.

HMRC’s investigation into his cases, the UK’s revenue service, focused on the sale of YouGov shares worth around £27m ($33.4m).

The investigation began in April 2021, but Zahavi did not announce it when he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer more than a year later.

Magnus’s report says that from the very beginning there should have been an understanding that the matter was serious.

Previously, Zahavi served as Minister of Vaccines in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, after which he served as Minister of Education for nine months.

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