BREAKING NEWS: David Cameron admits he DID have a £30,000 stake in his late father's offshore investment fund but sold the shares in 2010 before becoming PM

David Cameron tonight admitted he did own shares in his late father Ian Cameron's offshore firm Blairmore Investment Trust.
The Prime Minister revealed he held shares while an Opposition MP but sold them before entering No 10 six years ago.

Mr Cameron tonight pledged to release his personal tax return in an attempt to limit the damage from his revelation.

The Prime Minister insisted he had been clear about his present and future plans on tax, which included a promise never to benefit from money held offshore.
But in a bombshell admission he told ITV News: 'I should deal with the past as well. Because of course I did own stocks and shares in the past - quite naturally because my father was a stockbroker.'

Mr Cameron continued: 'I sold them all in 2010, because if I was going to become Prime Minister I didn't want anyone to say you have other agendas, vested interests.

'Samantha and I had a joint account. We owned 5000 units in Blairmore Investment Trust, which we sold in January 2010. That was worth something like £30,000.'
Labour MPs tonight began questioning why it had taken so many days after questions first emerged after the Panama papers leak for Mr Cameron to make his finances clear.

John Mann, a backbench Labour MP on the Treasury committee, said: 'During the 2010 General Election campaign Cameron failed to declare offshore shares. Get out now hypocrite.'
At the start of the week, Downing Street insisted the Cameron's family finances were a 'private matter' - before four separate statements to try and halt the row were made over 24 hours.

Mr Cameron tonight said he properly paid income tax on the dividends but did not have to pay capital gains tax because the profit of £19,003 on the sale was too low.
No 10 said Mr and Mrs Cameron bought their holding in April 1997 for £12,497 and sold it in January 2010 for £31,500.
He said: 'But it was subject to all the UK taxes in all the normal way. So I want to be as clear as I can about the past, present and future.

'Because frankly I don't have anything to hide. I am proud of my dad and what he did, the business he established and all the rest of it. I can't bear to see his name being dragged through the mud.
'For my own, I chose to take a different path from my father, grandfather and great grandfather, who were all stockbrokers, and I have nothing to hide in my arrangements.'

In the interview, the PM said he did believe proper payment of tax was a 'moral' issue.

Family secrets: Prime Minister David Cameron with his parents Ian and Mary during his general election campaigning in 2010. The PM's father, who set up offshore investment funds, died later that year

Mr Cameron made his admission in a TV interview with ITV's political editor Robert Peston, left with the PM today

Mr Cameron said the claims about his father had made this week a 'difficult few days'.
He said: 'I think a lot of the criticisms are based on a fundamental misconception, which is that Blairmore Investment, a unit trust, was set up with the idea of avoiding tax.

'It wasn't. It was set up after exchange controls went so that people who wanted to invest in dollar denominated shares and companies could do so.
'And there are thousands of other unit trusts set up in this way. It was reported to the HMRC, the Inland Revenue, it reported itself every year. It was properly audited.'

The Prime Minister insisted he could not certain where the £300,000 inherited from his father following his death in 2010 had been made.
But he acknowledged: 'But in all of this I've never hidden the fact that I am a very lucky person. I had wealthy parents who gave me a great upbringing, who paid for me to go to an amazing school.

'I have never tried to pretend to be anything I am not. And I am lucky, in that I earn a good salary as prime minister, my wife is successful and earns money and we own two very nice houses.

'So I am not pretending anything. But I was keen in 2010 to sell everything, shares, all the rest of it, so I can be very transparent. I don't own any part of any company, any investment trust, anything like that.'
Mr Cameron added: 'He left me some money, very generously, quite a lot of money. It was £300,000.
'I obviously can't point to every source of every bit of the money, and dad isn't around to ask the questions now.

'He was a very hardworking man who built up a business. He left his house to my brother. He left me some money. And left things to my brothers and sisters too. And I think there is transparency about all of that.
'And in the future I am not benefiting from any Cameron family trusts. At the moment I own no shares, no investments. I have savings.'

Mr Cameron said he would be happy to publish his tax return - and those for recent years - despite the fact he will not run for a third term as Prime Minister.
He said: 'I am very happy to get on and do that now. Whether we get on and do it every year, or starting now, or going back a couple of years, I am very happy with that.

FOUR STATEMENTS IN THREE DAYS – AND STILL THE PM HAD A CONFESSION TONIGHT

Downing Street issued four statements in 48 hours on the Prime Minister’s tax affairs as it tried to shut down the row about his late father’s dealings in tax havens.

Statement One 11am, Monday

 Asked if the Cameron family still had money in his late father’s offshore fund identified in the Panama Papers, the PM’s spokesman said: ‘That is a private matter. I will focus on what the government is doing.’

Statement Two. 2.30pm, Tuesday

Asked if he or his family had benefited from any offshore fund in the past, or would do so in the future, Mr Cameron said: ‘In terms of my own financial affairs, I own no shares. I have a salary as prime minister and I have some savings, which I get some interest from, and I have a house which we let out while we are living in Downing Street, and that’s all I have. I have no shares, no offshore trusts, no offshore funds, nothing like that. And, so that, I think, is a very clear description.’

Statement Three. 5pm, Tuesday

No 10 said: ‘To be clear, the Prime Minister, his wife and their children do not benefit from any offshore funds. The Prime Minister owns no shares. As has been previously reported, Mrs Cameron owns a small number of shares connected to her father’s land, which she declares on her tax return.’

Statement Four. 9am, Wednesday

A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘There are no offshore funds/trusts which the Prime Minister, Mrs Cameron or their children will benefit from in future.’

Labour's John Mann suggested Mr Cameron should resign over his 'hypocrisy' on tax avoidance

Treasury select committee member Wes Streeting questioned why it had taken days for the facts to be 'dragged out' of Mr Cameron

Labour's Paul Flynn also questioned why the truth from Mr Cameron was 'delayed'

'And that will be a big change. So we shouldn't dive into it and insist everyone does it.
'But if people want the prime minister and potential prime minister, as I said before I am relaxed about that, I am happy to do that.'

All MPs should not have to take the same step, Mr Cameron said.

Labour MP Paul Flynn said: 'Statement 6 by PM to ITV drags out truth that he inherited £300,000 from his father who profited from tax havens.
'Why was truth delayed?.'
Treasury select committee member Wes Streeting said: 'David Cameron keeps saying he has nothing to hide. So why are facts being dragged out of him over days?!'

In a bid to close down a toxic row over tax avoidance earlier this week, Mr Cameron made an extraordinary public statement about his personal finances and income - insisting he received no money from shares or offshore trusts.

But the claims only suggested more questions and Downing Street was forced to issue a string of further clarifications - making a total of four statements.
Ian Cameron was named in the massive leak of more than 11 million files from the Panama tax haven.
Shortly before his death the former stockbroker personally owned more than 6,000 shares in a Jersey fund he helped to manage, known by various names including the Close International Equity Growth Fund.

The assets in Jersey were left to the Prime Minister’s mother Mary in 2010, leaving open the possibility that Mr Cameron could eventually benefit from it in the form of an inheritance.

Mr Cameron was on the EU campaign trail in Exeter today, pictured, and insisted he had a good record on tackling tax avoidance as PM

The leaked papers revealed Ian Cameron’s firm Blairmore Holdings avoided UK tax for years by operating out of the Bahamas and Jersey.

FIRM MOVED TO IRELAND 'TO AVOID INCREASED SCRUTINY' IN THE SAME MONTH CAMERON SLAMMED 'MORALLY WRONG' TAX AVOIDANCE SCHEMES

Blairmore Holdings, the £35 million investment fund set up by David Cameron’s father, may have been moved from Panama to Ireland due to growing scrutiny of offshore accounts.

The Guardian reports that Ian Cameron consulted with lawyers on the pros and cons on several different tax havens before the fund eventually transferred to Ireland.

The Cayman Islands and Bermuda were considered to host Blairmore Holdings Inc after the fund's directors began considering moving the investment from Panama. The fund had been registered in Panama by Mossack Fonseca.

Ian Cameron set up the fund in the 1980s. It was incorporated in Panama and run from Nassau in the Bahamas, meaning Blairmore paid no UK tax over more than 20 years.

The firm employed some 50 Bahamas residents to sign documents and fill administrative roles.
Blairmore's directors consulted with London-based lawyers Simmons & Simmons in March 2008 over the best place to move the fund.

A lawyer wrote to Blairmore's directors: 'Both the Cayman Islands and Bermuda are considered market-leading offshore financial centres with sophisticated investment fund infrastructures. Both offer political stability, an abundance of professional service provider and responsive regulatory bodies.'

It was in 2012, after Ian Cameron’s death in 2010, that Blairmore, now valued at £21 million, was moved to Ireland. A source close to the firm told The Daily Telegraph it was moved as directors thought it was about to ‘come under more scrutiny’.

Experts said last night a crackdown on international money laundering may have inspired the move.
Richard Murphy, a professor of international political economy at City University, London, said moving money in and out of Panama became harder. ‘It would look better in Ireland than in Panama – it would have been easier to sell [to investors],’ he said.

But the move to Ireland was made in the very month Cameron, who was by then Prime Minister, described tax avoidance schemes as 'morally irresponsible'.

In June 2012 he vowed a crack down after it emerged celebrities including Jimmy Carr and Gary Barlow had used the K2 tax avoidance schemes.

Under Jersey law, the value of the assets does not have to be made public, but a grant of probate is normally required only for sums above £10,000.
It cannot include property but can apply to cash held in bank accounts or investments, including offshore trusts and funds, known as ‘movable estate’.

According to his English will, Ian Cameron left everything to his widow Mary, apart from specific bequests to the Prime Minister and his sisters.
Legal sources said the terms of the will meant any Jersey assets were most likely to have gone to Mrs Cameron.

Downing Street’s final statement yesterday said the Prime Minister and his family will not benefit in the future from any offshore funds.
But tax experts said funds held in Jersey would have grown more quickly, as dividend payments would not have been subject to tax.
If Mr Cameron inherits anything from his mother it could then be argued that he has benefited from the offshore Jersey assets.

Chartered accountant and tax lecturer Robert Leach said: ‘It’s quite possible that Mr Cameron and his siblings could benefit from money held offshore if they inherit any of Mary Cameron’s estate.
‘If this happens it will be difficult to reconcile this with the Prime Minister’s statement.’
There are legitimate reasons to hold money and other assets offshore and there is no suggestion of illegality or wrongdoing by any member of the Cameron family.

Documents filed in 2009 showed Ian Cameron held at least 6,000 shares in the Jersey fund – the first time he was shown to have personally held wealth offshore rather than managing funds like Blairmore Holdings in Panama.

After his death, the net value of his estate was put at £2.7million. He left £300,000 in cash – just under the threshold at which inheritance tax is paid – to David.
A £1million mews house in Kensington, West London, was left to the Prime Minister’s sisters Tania and Clare.

The remainder of his estate was left to Mrs Cameron.
The £2.5million family home near Newbury in Berkshire was transferred to the Prime Minister’s older brother Alex in 2006, in an apparent attempt to reduce inheritance tax liabilities.
Labour has repeatedly called for Downing Street to publish the full details of Mr Cameron’s links to Blairmore.

Mr Leach said that the Prime Minister needed to say if the £300,000 he received from his father’s will ‘was the proceeds of a scheme that avoided tax’.

He added: ‘The answer is probably yes as he would have denied it otherwise.
But even then he has not done anything illegal, although it is politically embarrassing.



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