Farage pays 25% tax via his firm while slamming ‘common enemy’ tax dodgers
Nigel Farage is using a private company to minimize his tax liability on his GB News media appearances and other external employment in an arrangement similar to that of a television star, a practice that major broadcasters have come to disapprove of in recent years.
The Reform UK leader channels earnings from his prime-time TV show into his company, allowing him to pay only 25% corporation tax on profits, rather than the 40% income tax, and to offset certain expenses.
The Clacton MP, who also receives a £94,000-a-year salary as an MP, has previously criticized people who attempt to avoid tax as the “common enemy” and has previously faced scrutiny for setting up a trust fund in an offshore tax haven.
He has also stated that some tax avoidance schemes are acceptable. “Most forms of legal tax avoidance are OK, but clearly some are not,” he said in 2014, adding that nobody willingly paid anything to HMRC while defending the reduction of a tax bill within the bounds of the law.
Farage claimed last year to have “bought a house” in his constituency, but the property is actually owned in the name of his partner, which legally allowed him to avoid higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional home, given that he already owns other properties.
The use of personal service companies is not illegal, but it has been criticized across the political spectrum as a method to reduce tax bills. Farage has declined to publish his tax returns for 2023/24.
Several broadcasters, including the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, have cracked down on this practice in recent years. HMRC has continuously tightened rules regarding off-payroll working (IR35) to prevent this type of tax avoidance.
The parliamentary register of interests shows that Farage has earned nearly £400,000 from GB News since August 2024, for approximately 190 hours of work. This suggests he is being compensated more than £2,000 an hour by the news channel.
All payments for his GB News work are made directly to his company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, where he is the director and sole shareholder. He holds other paid positions, including as a brand ambassador for gold bullion firms, as a speaker on the international circuit, and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.
The latest accounts reveal that as of 31 May 2024, the company held £1.7m in cash, an increase of over £1m in a year. It also owns two investment properties.
As Farage’s profile has risen with the emergence of Reform UK, so has the value of the company, which is now worth £2.6m, up £2m from 2021.
A spokesperson for Farage said: “Thorn in the Side Ltd has traded for 15 years and holds a variety of interests. It provides the services of several contractors and functions as a properly operating company.”
Farage has not been overly critical of Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, remarking “jolly good luck to her” when the Tories criticized her over her tax affairs during the summer. However, after it emerged that she had underpaid stamp duty on a seaside flat, he said: “I don’t see how she can survive this.”
The Reform leader is set to appear at his party’s conference on Friday in Birmingham, delivering a speech at 4 pm on its next steps. Earlier this week, he was in the US adopting more overtly hard-right rhetoric by describing the influence of Islam in the UK as a “literal catastrophe” and applauding Donald Trump’s mass roundup of migrants.
Migration had fundamentally changed the UK, he told Fox News, speaking before he presented evidence to a congressional inquiry on “Europe’s threat to American speech and innovation.”
“You said to me once, you went through parts of London, you didn’t even recognize it to be England,” he told the host, Sean Hannity. “So, please, America, heed the warnings. Realize why President Trump is brave and true and right to control the southern border and to ensure you preserve your American culture.”
Politics Editor
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