TIL Desk/Business/London/ Indian-origin retail brothers — Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora — have been ranked Britain’s 24th highest taxpayers, according to a new top 50 list compiled by ‘The Sunday Times’. The Arora family, behind the B&M chain of discount stores, paid 25.6 million pounds towards their 2017-18 tax bill against wealth estimated at 2,300 million pounds.
The UK’s highest taxpayer was named as sportwear businessman Stephen Rubin, who paid 181.6 million pounds in tax in 2017-18 against a wealth estimate of 2,820 million pounds. “These are the taxman’s best friends those who make the inaugural ‘Sunday Times Tax List’ based on the taxes due on their business profits, share sales, dividend income, house purchases and, where known, personal income through their salaries,” the newspaper noted.
“The super-rich are often castigated for not paying their fair share of tax, for deploying all tax avoidance measures at their disposal, yet the top 1 per cent of earners are expected to yield 28 per cent of all income tax receipts for 2017-18,” it noted. Based on Merseyside in north-west England, B&M paid 143.2 million pounds in corporation tax, customs duties, stamp duty and other taxes in 2017-18, with 63 million pounds in dividends. The Arora brothers, who built the business, own just under 15 per cent of it, with 49-year-old Simon its chief executive.
