UNDER-fire Angela Rayner may owe HMRC up to £3,500, a Labour tax expert said yesterday.
The deputy opposition chief is facing increasing pressure to explain the 2015 sale of the Stockport semi she bought using right-to-buy.
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Questions arose after she publicly stated she was not liable to pay thousands in capital gains tax on a £48,500 profit on the sale, despite appearing to live at another property in the Greater Manchester town.
Labour tax supremo Dan Neidle argued Ms Rayner could have mistakenly not realised she owed the taxman into the thousands.
He said: “Now the story is out, it would be sensible for Ms Rayner to speak to a tax adviser and work out what her capital gains tax position in 2015 actually was.
“If it turns out she failed to pay a small amount of capital gains tax, I think most people would understand that as a mistake – but it’s a mistake she can and should explain and correct.”
A spokesman for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer this week refused to say the matter was closed and directed scrutiny to the deputy chief’s office.
But Ms Rayner’s team have stonewalled journalists on detailed questioning.
The mystery risks overshadowing her appearance at the Convention of the North in Leeds today.
At the conference the Deputy leader will accuse the Tories of having “underestimated the North” and “failed to give northern towns and cities the tools or opportunity to live up to their best potential.”
Mr Neidle, a Labour member for more than 35 years, has previously served as ward secretary and ward chair at his local party constituency branch.
