What do we know about Conservative Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs?
From an Iraqi-refugee who spoke no English to a multi-millionaire businessman and cabinet minister, Nadhim Zahawi’s story is one of the most compelling in Westminster.
But questions about his financial affairs are now front and centre, having first gained prominence during the Stratford-on-Avon MP’s short-lived campaign to become prime minister last summer.
The allegations centre on his links to a Gibraltar-based trust ‘Balshore Investments Limited’, of which his father Hareth Zahawi is a director.
When Nadhim Zahawi co-founded the polling firm YouGov in May 2000, the trust was allocated shares in the company equalling the number given to the other co-founder Stephan Shakespeare.
Asked about this by Kay Burley last year, the then chancellor said neither he nor his wife benefit from the Gibraltar trust and denied it was used to avoid tax, saying it was simply because his father “lived abroad”.
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Speaking in July, 2022, the then Tory leadership contender told Kay Burley he was ‘clearly being smeared’ over tax claims
The cabinet minister has also suggested the trust held the shares because his father was involved in setting up the company, had put money into it and had provided guidance.
Those working at YouGov at the time said Hareth Zahawi was helpful, albeit in an informal way, while others at the firm said he was not involved beyond being a shareholder.
Evidence from 2005 also appears to show – at that point, before he became an MP – Nadhim Zahawi was benefitting from this offshore trust.
A financial document published by YouGov sets out that a dividend payment that was due to go to Balshore instead was used to pay off loans owed by Mr Zahawi.
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Labour calls for Zahawi to be sacked
Potential tax saving uncovered
Much of this detail was first uncovered by Dan Neidle – a lawyer who used to work for a top corporate and now runs a not-for-profit focussed on tax policy.
Tory sources have briefed that Mr Neidle – who is a Labour member – is a “Labour activist” and the allegations are merely taken from his “blog”.
This comes after lawyers acting for Mr Zahawi sent Mr Neidle a series of letters last year threatening legal action if he continued to publish analysis of the Tory MP’s financial affairs.
After digging through pages of documents, Mr Neidle had suggested there would have been a potential tax saving of several million pounds when Balshore sold its YouGov shares.
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Zahawi asked if he settled with HMRC
That’s because they were held in an offshore trust rather than by Mr Zahawi directly, and hence not eligible for capital gains tax.
It’s this figure that is at the centre of the repayment to HMRC.
On Friday, the Guardian newspaper suggested Mr Zahawi reached a settlement with the exchequer that reflected the fact he should have paid tax on the sale of these shares at the time.
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PM urged to sack Zahawi over tax claims
Tax affairs up to date
Mr Zahawi has now confirmed that tax was repaid saying that HMRC had concluded his father was not entitled to the share allocation handed to him when YouGov was created.
The Tory chairman said this was a “careless and not a deliberate error” and didn’t confirm if any penalty was also levied.
He also re-stated that he was not a beneficiary of Balshore Investments and had never set up an offshore structure.
However, this intervention clashes somewhat with previous assertions that his tax affairs “were and are fully up to date”.
Read more: Nadhim Zahawi says HMRC concluded tax error was ‘careless and not deliberate’
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It also looks somewhat awkward given his attempts to silence those looking into his tax affairs and his statement to Sky News last year that people were trying to “smear” him over his business dealings.
There are also still unanswered questions, including the pointed one of whether someone who was chancellor a matter of months ago was issued with a penalty by HMRC for failing to pay the right amount of tax.
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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