In the PM race for the second time in months, British Indian Rishi Sunak is now a household name and a hot favorite to replace Liz Truss as the next Prime Minister of UK. Despite growing inflation and skyrocketing price rises in UK, Sunak and his family have largely remained undeterred. He and his wife Akshata Murthy even joined the UK rich list recently, per The Sunday Times Rich List.
Sunak became the first frontline politician in the UK to find himself in the wealthiest people list all when UK is reeling from severe economic turmoil. The former hedge fund manager and his Indian wife Akshata Murty – daughter of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy – were both featured in The Sunday Times Rich List in May this year as the 22nd wealthiest people in UK boasting a combined wealth of £ 730 Million ($911 million, 861 million euros).
The bulk of their wealth is believed to have come from Akshata Murthy’s £690-million stake in Infosys, but Sunak too had a highly lucrative career in finance before entering politics in 2015.
According to an estimation made earlier this year, Rishi Sunak’s wife was richer than Queen Elizabeth II, whose personal wealth was about 350 million pounds ($460 million), according to the 2021 Sunday Times Rich List.
A storm of controversies erupted over the Sunak couple’s inclusion in the rich list after it was revealed earlier this year that his wife was sheltered from paying tax on foreign earnings to his Treasury department after claiming so-called non-domiciled status. According to some estimates, Murty’s non-dom status could have saved her £20 million in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys.
Soon after the revelations emerged, Sunak’s wife announced that she would start paying UK tax on “all worldwide income”, noting that she did not want her tax affairs to be a “distraction” for her husband and his political ambitions.
The “non-dom” scheme has been controversial over the recent years, particularly now that Britons face tax rises and the cost-of-living crisis, with some opposition parties calling for its abolition.
Sunak too has faced persistent criticism for doing too little to help hard-pressed Britons during an impending economic crisis in the country. Critics have time and again accused Sunak of hypocrisy for raising taxes on people as various prices surge, while his own family has seen millions of pounds in Infosys dividends shielded from his own exchequer.
The Sunday Times’ list calculates identifiable wealth — land, property, racehorses, art or significant shares in publicly quoted companies — but is unable to measure bank account balances and small shareholdings in private equity portfolios.
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