Getty ImagesSanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich must be investigated over the £1bn he could owe, a group of MPs has urged HMRC.
In a letter to the tax authority, Joe Powell, a Labour MP who leads a Parliamentary group on fair taxation, refers to BBC reports raising questions about whether tax is due on offshore investments.
“Proper investigation of these matters is essential,” the letter said. HMRC said it was “committed to ensuring everyone pays the right tax under the law, regardless of wealth or status”.
Mr Abramovich’s lawyers have told the BBC he “always obtained independent expert professional tax and legal advice” and “acted in accordance with that advice”.
Leaked papers reveal investments from Mr Abramovich worth $6bn (£4.7bn) were routed through companies in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), but evidence seen by the BBC suggests they were managed from the UK, so should have been taxed there.
The BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have been examining the papers for over a year – thousands of files and emails from a Cyprus-based company that administered Mr Abramovich’s global empire.
The BBC and its media partners, including The Guardian, have been reporting on the leaked files since 2023 as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Cyprus Confidential investigation.
Some of the money that funded Chelsea FC when Mr Abramovich owned it can be traced back to companies involved in the scheme, the BBC and its partners also found.
Mr Powell’s letter said these findings raise “serious questions about Mr Abramovich’s potential tax liabilities”
It called on HMRC “to investigate and, if appropriate, to reclaim any funds potentially owed by Roman Abramovich to the UK tax authorities” in reference to the findings from the BBC, TBIJ, and The Guardian.
“Given the scale of the sums involved, ensuring that any unpaid taxes are recovered is a matter of public interest—particularly at a time when funds are urgently needed for public services and to manage the national debt,” the letter added.
A HMRC spokesperson said it was “continuing to lead international efforts to improve global transparency”.
‘Broadest possible powers’
It is not unusual for businesses to legally avoid paying tax on their profits by making their investments from companies in tax havens. But the companies involved must be managed and controlled offshore where they are incorporated.
If an offshore company’s strategic decisions are being taken by someone in the UK, its profits could be taxed as if it were a UK company.
The leaked documents seen by the BBC show how the directors of the BVI investment companies handed sweeping powers over them to a friend of Mr Abramovich, Eugene Shvidler, who was living in the UK and gained British citizenship in 2010.
The BBC has seen “general power of attorney” documents dated between 2004 and 2008, that gave him the “broadest possible powers” and “full power to do everything and anything” to investment companies in the BVI.
Lawyers for Mr Shvidler said the BBC was basing its reporting on “confidential business documents that present an incomplete picture” and had “drawn strong and erroneous conclusions as to Mr Shvidler’s conduct”.
They said “the structure of investments” was “the subject of very careful and detailed tax planning, undertaken and advised on by leading tax advisors”.
Cyprus Confidential is international collaborative investigation launched in 2023 led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into Cyprus firms provided corporate and financial services to associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime, based on documents from a corporate service provider originally obtained by the whistleblowing group Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Media partners include The Guardian, the investigative newsroom Paper Trail Media, the Italian newspaper L’Espresso, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).
TBIJ reporting team: Simon Lock and Eleanor Rose.
