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Statement from the Office of Tony Blair on last week's Sunday Telegraph story

On 8th January, the Sunday Telegraph ran a story under the headline, Tony Blair and the £8million tax 'mystery'. The following letter for publication from the Office of Tony Blair was sent to the newspaper following publication of that story:

"Even by the standards of the Sunday Telegraph campaign on Tony Blair’s post Prime Minister career, your story was a shocker.

"Mr Blair does not only pay £315,000 in tax. The tax you refer to is not Mr Blair’s personal tax but that of the company through which he administers the costs of his different activities worldwide. There was a surplus in the company at the end of the accounting year of just over £1m. It paid £315,000 tax on this. That has nothing whatever to do with Mr Blair’s income, nor his personal tax, nor the profits or revenues of his business.

"The £12.005m you refer to are not his earnings, nor the earnings from his business. It is the money allocated to cover the costs of administering all the various things he does in the world. So to elide costs with earnings and then use a tax figure that has nothing to do with Mr Blair’s earnings, and implying it is all Mr Blair pays personally in tax is completely misleading.

"For the record, on Mr Blair’s actual earnings he is a 50% top rate taxpayer and his businesses pay full UK corporation tax.

"He also supports, from his earnings, the charities he has established as well as making other donations. There are more than 120 people working on all his activities around the world. He actually spends the majority of his time on unpaid pro bono work in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere."