Minister in charge of HelpToBuy has offshore BuyToLet empire

[porridge]

Independent said:

Andrea Leadsom, the new City minister, used controversial trusts to reduce her potential tax bill and took advantage of offshore banking arrangements for her buy-to-let property company – in an apparent contradiction to George Osborne’s attempts to crack down on tax avoidance.

...The revelations are particularly embarrassing as Ms Leadsom now has overall responsibility for the Government’s controversial Help to Buy property scheme – which has faced accusations of creating another house-price boom and pushing property ownership out of the reach of lower-income families.
Ms Leadsom resigned as a director of Bandal in February just before she was promoted to the Treasury in the reshuffle, and was replaced by her 18-year-old son. His occupation is listed as “student”, according to documents at Companies House. In a sign of the apparent nervousness around the new minister’s financial arrangements, Bandal’s offshore charges, to Kleinwort Benson (Channel Islands) Ltd, were also recently amended to the UK branch of the investment bank, just before Ms Leadsom stepped up to her ministerial post in charge of the City and financial regulation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-how-city-minister-andrea-leadsom-used-controversial-trusts-to-reduce-her-potential-inheritancetax-bill-9268469.HTML