David Cameron faces fresh row after £200k gift from mum

Number 10 said that the two payments of £100,000 in 2011 came on top of the £300,000 Mr Cameron inherited from his father Ian as the Prime Minister's mother Mary attempted to "balance" the sums received by their children.

The information was revealed as part of an unprecedented release of information about the Prime Minister's finances, which showed that he paid more than £400,000 in tax on an income of more than £1 million over six years from 2009 to 2015.

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 the Prime Minister's mother dies within seven years of handing over the money.

The release of the information by Downing Street followed the furore over the Panama Papers data leak and the revelation that Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha made a £19,000 profit on shares in an offshore trust set up by the Prime Minister's father.

The Prime Minister has been angered by the focus on his father's offshore business interests, insisting it was a "fundamental misconception" that the Blairmore Holdings trust had been set up to avoid tax.

But Labour seized on his father's offshore business links to question the source of Mr Cameron's inheritance and the gift from his mother.

A Labour Party spokesman said: "The week started with a moral crisis at the heart of the Tory party and has now ended with a scandal at the very top of Government.

"The Prime Minister has been forced to admit that not only had he benefited from a company that paid no tax in 30 years, but that he may pay no tax on any benefits potentially gained from the same company.

"David Cameron can't hide any more, he needs to come to Parliament on Monday and put the record straight."

The information released by Number 10, in a schedule drawn up by accountants, showed the Prime Minister had a taxable income of more than £200,000 in 2014-15 and paid almost £76,000 in tax.

The figures show that, on top of his income as Prime Minister, his 50% share of the rental income on the Camerons' family home in London amounted to £46,899, he received £9,834 in taxable expenses from the Tory party and £3,052 in interest on savings in a high street bank.

The figures reveal that when he first entered Downing Street in 2010 he benefited from a £20,000 tax-free allowance as part of his £142,500 salary, although in subsequent years he did not take advantage of the long-standing perk available to occupants of Number 10.

The information shows that Mr Cameron earned enough to benefit from the cut in the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p.

The cut, announced in 2012 for people earning more than £150,000, came into effect in April 2013.

Mr Cameron said he was publishing the information to be "completely open and transparent" about his financial affairs.

The disclosure came after he admitted botching the handling of the row over his finances, telling Tory activists it had "not been a great week".

The tax return figures show that in 2009-10, while leader of the opposition, Mr Cameron paid £43,483 income tax on a total taxable income of £129,225.

In 2010-11, after entering Downing Street, he paid £56,155 on a taxable income of £157,286 - benefiting from the little-known £20,000 tax-free "prime ministerial expenses deduction".

In 2011-12 his income rose to £200,919, boosted by his share of the rental income from the Notting Hill home vacated by the Camerons when they moved in to Downing Street, and he paid £77,987 in tax.

In 2012-13 Mr Cameron paid £72,472 tax on an income of £189,506; in 2013-14 he paid £76,288 on his £200,735 income.

Although Mr Cameron's gross salary as Prime Minister stood at £142,500 between 2010 and 2015, the variations in the taxable amount came through the way his pension contributions were treated and the different approaches taken to the £20,000 tax-free allowance.

The Prime Minister voluntarily cancelled out the allowance by declaring the equivalent amount as taxable income between 2011-12 and 2013-14 before waiving it entirely from 2014-15.

The figures show that the Camerons receive rent of more than £90,000 a year on the Notting Hill property.

Mr Cameron's 50% share of the net rental income, minus expenses, was £45,041 in 2011-12, £46,700 in 2012-13, £47,764 in 2013-14 and £46,899 last year.

Interest from his high street savings accounts amounted to £26 in 2009-10, £87 in 2010-11, £365 in 2011-12 before rising to £2,701 in 2012-13, £6,681 in 2013-14 and £3,052 in 2014-15.

Mr Cameron's savings benefited from the sale of £72,000 of shares when he entered No 10, with the gains on some shares wiped out by losses on others, resulting in a capital loss of £2,507, and around £40,000 in cash from an account with a stockbroker.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would publish his own tax return "very, very soon" and insisted there were "no surprises there" .

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Mr Corbyn said more people in public life should publish their tax returns and suggested the Prime Minister still had questions to answer about his finances, particularly in the period before he entered No 10.

He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "I want to see the papers. 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. I think there is a question for Parliament there, there is a question for Parliamentary standards to question him on this.

"There is a question - big questions - that have to be put to him by Parliament and that surely is the function of Parliament."

He said the rules over inheritance tax may need to be looked at following the disclosure about the gift from Mr Cameron's mother.

"She has done that and that is within the rules, providing of course the person giving the money lives for more than seven years - and obviously we hope she does.

"The issue is one that it does actually reduce the level of inheritance tax that is available for the Exchequer as a whole.

"Is there a case for looking at inheritance tax rules? Possibly, but I think what's more important this week is actually looking at the whole question of tax havens, of British dependent territories, of the way in which huge sums of money are placed in these havens to evade tax in Britain.

"There's a moral case: if you earn money, you pay tax. If you earn a lot of money, you pay more tax.

"Non-payment of tax means underfunding of public services as a whole, that's what the Panama Papers have shown. The moral case has to be made."

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The SNP's Westminster leader added his voice to calls for the Prime Minister to address the Commons on the issue.

Angus Robertson told Sky News' Murnaghan programme that if Mr Cameron did not voluntarily make a statement to Parliament on Monday, his party would apply for an urgent question on the tax issue.

The MP for Moray called on ministers to be transparent and challenged Chancellor George Osborne to follow suit.

He said: "I have particular concerns about the wider UK Government, because of course it's the UK Cabinet that sets the framework of legislation, that discusses what UK policy is and we have heard absolutely nothing about other members of the cabinet.

"Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, has he made a declaration that he has never ever benefited from offshore trusts, what about other Treasury ministers, have they ever benefited from offshore trusts?"

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Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the inheritance tax system needed reform.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics that he did not doubt that Mr Cameron had paid all the tax due on his income "but we haven't seen the full tax returns yet so we can't make that final judgment".

He added: "I don't personalise politics, this is about the system and a system whereby someone can inherit, effectively, £500,000 from his mum and dad and not pay a penny on it, I think there's something wrong in the system that allows that to happen."

Put to him that Labour left-wing hero Tony Benn had taken steps to reduce the inheritance tax liability on his estate, Mr McDonnell said: "It depends on the level that's going on. I think people are looking at the scale, the disproportionate scale of benefits to the rich as against the rest of the population. I think that's why people want a review of the whole system."

He added that any system had to be "fair and proportionate".

Housing Minister Brandon Lewis said the gift from Mrs Cameron to her son was no different from similar arrangements used in other families, it was just a "larger sum of money".

He told Pienaar's Politics: "There's many thousands of people, at different levels and different amounts of money, whether it's grandparents giving their grandchildren a bit of money so they can see them enjoy it while they are alive, that happens every day.

"I appreciate we are talking about larger sums of money in this case, and if something happens obviously the tax will be paid - nobody is accusing the Prime Minister of not paying tax that's due, because there is no tax due on that money."

He added that his opinion of the Prime Minister had improved because of the "human" side he showed during the row.

He has done everything by the book and all the tax has been paid," he said.

"I think it shows our Prime Minister is human. I have got great respect for him, I think he has been and is a fantastic Prime Minister but the fact he is now showing he is also human and cares about his family and wants to protect his family, I have to say, if anything, he goes up in my estimation."

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A Tory minister said Mr Cameron would have to "demonstrate and build up" trust with the British public following the row over the Panama Papers.

Defence minister Penny Mordaunt, who is on the opposing side of the European Union referendum argument to the Prime Minister, told BBC One's Sunday Politics: "I don't think it's damaged his credibility. I think - I don't have any other insights other than you do, but I don't think he has done anything wrong.

"I think what this is about is trust. And he has to now demonstrate and build up that trust and rapport with the general public."

Asked if the Prime Minister had lost her trust, she replied: "I think that this will raise questions ... about politicians publishing further information about themselves, and I think although I understand arguments around privacy and security, if that is what the electorate require of their elected officials, I think that's what will have to happen."

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Justice minister and supporter of the Vote Leave campaign Dominic Raab argued it "seems crystal clear not only that he's (Mr Cameron) not done anything illegal, but he's not behaved improperly in any way".

He told Sky News' Murnaghan programme: "Frankly some of the personalised attacks on him, on his father, have been deeply unsavoury. Jeremy Corbyn came in saying as leader of the Labour Party he was going to introduce a kinder politics and yet he's been whipping up a mob mentality and engaging and leading these attacks, whipping up Labour MPs who, some of them are behaving like, frankly, hyenas.

"I think it's grotesque hypocrisy given what he's said and really it's just about scoring political points, there's no substance to any of this at all in relation to trying to suggest the PM has done anything wrong."

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