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David Cameron with mother, Mary Fleur Cameron |
David Cameron's mother gave him a £200,000 gift after his father's death which could potentially avoid inheritance tax, his accounts show.
In a first for a UK prime minister, Mr Cameron has released a summary of his tax returns from 2009-15 as he tries to defuse a row over his finances.
The two £100,000 payments were made a year after the PM inherited £300,000 from his father in 2010, papers show.
Ministers said he'd done nothing wrong but Labour said questions remained.
Mr Cameron is to make a statement to MPs on Monday on government measures to investigate tax-dodging allegations arising from the leak of 11 million documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, known as the Panama Papers.
He is also expected to refer to his decision to publish details of his own finances, said BBC political correspondent Carole Walker.
In the past six years, Mr Cameron earned a total of almost £1.1m and paid about £400,000 in income tax, according to the three-page summary.
Last year, he paid almost £76,000 in tax on an income of more than £200,000. Those earnings included almost £47,000 from a share of rent paid on his family home in west London.
Downing Street is providing no details about the £72,000 the PM received for selling "other shares" beyond his investment in his Blairmore Holdings fund or the £40,000 he received in cash from his stockbroking account.
The payments by Mary Cameron to her son in May and July 2011 were given tax free, and will only become liable to inheritance tax of up to 40% if she dies within seven years of handing over the money.
Downing Street said the payments were an attempt to "balance" the sums received by all the Cameron children, as Mr Cameron's older brother had inherited the family home.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mr Cameron needed to publish his full tax returns dating back to before he became prime minister in 2010, when he sold off shares in his late father's offshore investment fund for a £19,000 profit.
"I want to see the papers," Mr Corbyn told the Andrew Marr show.
"We need to know what he's actually returned as a tax return. We need to know why he put this money overseas in the first place, and whether he made anything out of it or not before 2010 when he became prime minister. These are questions that he must answer."
Asked about the £200,000 gift Mr Cameron received from his mother, the Labour leader said there was "possibly" a case for looking at inheritance tax rules.
He said: "It does actually reduce the level of inheritance tax that is available for the Exchequer as a whole."
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the prime minister had "effectively inherited £500,000 from his mum and dad and not paid a penny on it," which, he said, showed there was "something wrong with the system".
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has, meanwhile, published her tax return for 2014/15, and committed to publishing it annually for as long as she is First Minister. It shows she earned £104,817, and paid more than £31,000 in tax.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale was the first Scottish party leader to publish her tax returns, on Saturday, and was swiftly followed Ms Sturgeon, the Conservatives's Ruth Davidson and Lib Dem Willie Rennie.
Inheritance tax is paid if a person's estate (their property, money and possessions) is worth more than £325,000 when they die. The rate is 40% on anything above the threshold.
Married couples and civil partners are allowed to pass their possessions and assets to each other tax-free.
The deceased's estate may not have to pay inheritance tax on assets the deceased gave away as gifts while they were alive. The original owner must live for seven years after giving the gift.
Source: bbc.com
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