HSBC files show Tories raised over £5m from HSBC Swiss account holders

Labour too has received cash and loans from bank’s clients, while leaked documents also reveal many donors with HSBC accounts had non-dom tax status

Conservative donors, peers and a high profile MP are listed among the wealthy who legally held accounts in Switzerland with HSBC’s private bank, for a wide variety of reasons.

Their ranks include Zac Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park, plus his brother the financier Ben Goldsmith, and a Swiss resident, German-born automotive heir Georg von Opel, who has donated six-figure sums in the past two years.

Peers named in the HSBC files include Lord Sterling of Plaistow, the P&O shipping and ports entrepreneur who was ennobled by Margaret Thatcher, and Lord Fink, who was a party treasurer under David Cameron and has given £3m to the Conservatives.

Zac Goldsmith has, with his brother Ben and their mother Lady Annabel, donated over £500,000 in cash and in kind to the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have raised over £5m from HSBC clients recorded with Swiss accounts, while Labour has also benefited from cash and gifts in kind worth over £500,000, as well as a loan for £2m.

Labour donors who held Swiss accounts with HSBC include the steel magnate Swraj Paul and restaurant owner and clothing entrepreneur Richard Caring, who at various times is recorded to have donated to both Labour and the Conservatives.

Von Opel, a major Tory donor named in the HSBC files, is a great-grandson of the German automotive entrepreneur Adam Opel. He has UK homes and a British wife, but told the Guardian he is a Swiss resident.

Since moving to Switzerland as a child, Von Opel has been a tax exile, managing his fortune from there. His office said none of Von Opel’s accounts were used for evading or avoiding tax. They added: “Mr von Opel … is a Swiss national and a Swiss resident since 1973.”

This has not stopped him from financing British politics. Since December 2012, Von Opel has donated over £430,000 to the Conservatives. He owns homes and a business in Britain, and has been on the electoral register since 2010, entitling him to make party donations. EU citizens like Von Opel are entitled to vote in local but not national elections.

Being a client of a Swiss bank is not illegal and does not prove tax avoidance or evasion. There is no suggestion that any of the individual donors did anything unlawful.

A number of political donors found to have Swiss accounts are also high profile members of Britain’s growing non-dom community – the tens of thousands of wealthy foreign residents attracted to the UK by a historical quirk which allows them to live in the country without paying inheritance tax or incurring tax on assets owned offshore, by claiming they will eventually retire abroad.

Sterling was linked to three HSBC accounts totalling £7.8m. Two of them were for his UK investment businesses while the third was for an offshore trust, the Harry Sterling 1964 Settlement, established by his father.

Sterling said the HSBC accounts were opened by Veritas Asset Management, an investment firm which managed his personal and corporate assets, that his financial arrangements were fully declared, and that no tax had been avoided.

One of the Conservative party’s recent treasurers, Lord Fink, formerly Stanley Fink, is revealed as having made the most of a four-year posting to Switzerland while working at hedge fund the Man Group.

He opened Swiss accounts with HSBC in 1996 and 1997, which banked Man Group shares held in UK-registered bare trusts designed to minimise capital gains tax. Most of the trusts were wound up when he returned to London.

Fink said they were fully declared and tax paid on all the dividends they received. “I was Swiss-resident … the only reasons I opened bank accounts in Switzerland was the ordinary management of my current affairs. To the extent I created any trust accounts, these were perfectly normal planning matters, and could have been set up with similar effect, without the Swiss bank being involved.”

Edward Lee, who is on the board of Conservative Friends of Israel, has given some £85,000 to the Tories. Lee and his brother were sons of the late Arnold Lee, a prominent London property developer, who set up offshore trusts for them in the 1970s. Their Swiss accounts had a value up to £2m. Lee says all his tax affairs have been correctly declared and reported: “I have paid all tax as and when due.”

Zac and Ben Goldsmith inherited French nationality and non-domicile status from their father Sir James Goldsmith. HSBC Suisse was used to distribute a tax sheltered offshore fortune to around 15 family members, and the money has since been invested by his heirs in UK properties and businesses.

This perk ended for Zac Goldsmith in 2009, when he relinquished his non-dom status after a public outcry. He said he paid all taxes on income and capital gains, and that the offshore structure created by his father “was not designed to mitigate taxation but rather to preserve the assets for future generations”. Ben Goldsmith declined to comment further.

After publication of this story, Zac Goldsmith issued a statement which said: “It has never been a secret that I am a beneficiary of a trust set up by my late father and administered by a family office in Geneva. Indeed this was widely discussed before the last election. This report adds nothing to that old story.

“To be clear, my very numerous family members around the world who are beneficiaries of the same trust do not own or control it, but like me, they receive income from it.

“I have never had a Swiss bank account, and do not control any Swiss bank accounts. I have never sought or been given tax minimisation advice by HSBC, directly or indirectly. The media commentary around this is therefore wrong.”

However, the leaked files contain details of a Caymans entity called Verton Holdings Ltd, listed by the bank as owned jointly by Zac and Ben Goldsmith. Verton invested in companies including Evergreen Investments and Ben Goldsmith’s green private equity fund, WHEB Ventures. The Goldsmiths also used Verton to invest in the Sportsman, a short-lived newspaper which folded in 2006.

Neither Goldsmith answered questions about Verton when approached by the Guardian ahead of publication.

Those who claim non-domicile status, a quirk of British law which dates back to colonial times, must persuade tax inspectors that they intend to eventually leave the country for good.

Sir Anwar Pervez, the founder of the Bestway cash and carry business, hedge fund investor Arpad Busson, and restaurant owner and clothing entrepreneur Richard Caring have all donated to British political parties, but under tax rules they must declare to the Revenue that they will be ending their days abroad.

Pervez has donated, personally and through his company, over £500,000 to a range of parties, although the vast majority of his gifts have been to the Conservatives. HSBC’s records indicate that Pervez and every other director on Bestway’s eight-member board were linked with Swiss accounts. Pervez said the Revenue was aware of these accounts and trusts and all directors were tax compliant.

Busson, a French national now based in London whose charity ARK manages over 30 academy schools, has given £75,000 to the Tories via his company and held millions in an array of HSBC Swiss accounts. Busson said he had paid substantial UK tax.

Lord Paul, who has given nearly £500,000 over a 25-year period to Labour, mostly via his UK companies, held a considerable portion of his fortune via Geneva, with accounts containing up to £240m. Paul relinquished his non-dom status in 2010, after parliamentarians were banned from using the benefit. He said the Revenue was fully aware of his accounts and that they had incurred no additional tax.

Swiss client Richard Caring, owner of London society venues the Ivy and Annabel’s, loaned £2m to Labour when the party was last in government, before publicly switching his support. He has now made donations worth over £400,000 to the Tories. As a non-dom born to an American father, Caring lives in the UK but has to say for tax purposes that he will not reside in the country indefinitely. Caring, who banked up to £100m in HSBC Suisse, said he had paid all due taxes on time.

This article was amended on 11 February 2015 to better reflect Lord Fink’s tax position.