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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has ordered a probe into his Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi over his dispute with tax collectors.
Sunak announced in Monday morning that he had asked his independent ethics adviser to investigate whether Zahawi broke the ministerial code of cinduct.
"I think it is important we do these things professionally. Integrity and accountability's really important to me, but it's also important we do these things properly," Sunak said. "Integrity and accountability is really important to me and clearly in this case there are questions that need answering."
Zahawi, the former COVID-19 vaccines minister and then education secretary who briefly succeeded Sunak as chancellor of the exchequer this summer, is under scrutiny after he admitted he had made a huge settlement for overdue tax with His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
British media reported that the Tory chairman and MP for Stratford-on-Avon had been forced to pay a whopping £4.8 million, which included a 30 per cent penalty for overdue payment.
Zahawi said he and the taxman had "disagreed about the exact allocation" of shares in YouGov, the polling firm he founded, but insisted that was just a "careless and not deliberate" error.
Sources told media that Zahawi had paid what he owed during his two-month stint as chancellor from July 5 to September 6 2022.
The YouGov shares, reportedly totalling 42.5 per cent of the company's ownership, were transferred to Gibraltar-based firm Balshore Investments in 2000. Balshore was owned by a trust controlled by Zahawi's parents, and the former minister has said he transferred the shares in recognition of his father's role in providing capital to set up the firm.
YouGov has gained a reputation as the UK's most reliable pollster. It predicted the outcome of the last general election in December 2019 more accurately than any other, partly by conducting far larger surveys of tens of thousands of voters.