Awkward! Luxury leather goods firm Smythson where PM’s wife Samantha Cameron works is based in a tax haven
Samantha Cameron is creative consultant at the upmarket company
Firm is is owned through a holding company in Luxembourg
It is also linked to a secretive trust in the Channel Island of Guernsey
David Cameron has often criticised companies who use tax havens
David Cameron has often railed against big firms moving abroad to avoid tax, warning they must ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ to recognise public anger at the practice.
So there must have been an awkward conversation over the Number 10 breakfast table this morning after it emerged the Prime Minister’s wife Samantha works for a company which is now based in a tax haven.
Luxury leather goods firm Smythson, where Mrs Cameron is a creative consultant, is owned through a holding company in Luxembourg and linked to a secretive trust in the Channel Island of Guernsey, another well-known tax haven.
The store in Central London’s New Bond Street sells £2,000 python skin handbags.
Mrs Cameron has been a creative consultant at the upmarket company since 2010 on a salary thought to be up to £100,000 a year
Details of Smythson’s financial affairs are likely to be the source of embarrassment for Mr Cameron, who has warned customers are fed up with the perception that companies do not pay their fair share.
Two years ago he took a swipe at coffee chain Starbucks, following revelations it had failed to pay corporation tax in the UK for three years.
The Prime Minister insisted individuals and businesses ‘must pay their fair share’.
‘Any businesses who think that they can carry on dodging that fair share or that they can keep on selling to the UK and setting up ever-more complex tax arrangements abroad to squeeze their tax bill right down – well, they need to wake up and smell the coffee because the public who buy from them have had enough,’ he said in January 2013.
Chancellor George Osborne unveiled a so-called ‘Google Tax’ in his recent Autumn Statement, aimed at curbing tax avoidance and stopping multi-national tech companies from channelling revenues into secretive tax havens.
