Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Arora family, Boparans among UK's biggest taxpayers

LEADING Asian businessmen - brothers Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora - as well as Ranjit Boparan and his wife Baljinder are among the UK’s 50 biggest taxpayers, according to The Sunday Times (31).

The Arora brothers are the biggest shareholders of budget retailer B&M, and according to The Sunday Times, their tax liability was £37 million, with the family wealth estimated to be £2,111m in 2020.


Ranjit and Baljinder Boparan of Boparan Holdings were ranked 21 in the list. The couple paid £37m in tax and their wealth was estimated to be £593m last year.

Simon Arora and his family were scheduled to receive a bonus as B&M Bargains announced a special dividend of 20p per share to shareholders after bumper sales.

Arora bought B&M - then a small, loss-making chain of stores – in 2005 with his brother Bobby.

Together the Aroras turned the budget retailer into a discount giant, with hundreds of stores across the UK and Germany and surging ahead of its rivals on the FTSE 100 last year as it continued to operate under its 'essential' status.

The brothers grew up in Manchester after their father came to the UK from India in the late 1960s – reportedly with just £10 in his pocket.

Boparan Holdings was founded in 1993 and has more than 25 years’ experience in the food industry. Notable acquisitions of the firm include Northern Foods and Brookes Avana in 2011.

Ranjit and wife Baljinder Boparan are the sole shareholders of Boparan Holdings, the holding company for 2 Sisters Food Group.

Recently, Boparan Holdings agreed to sell part of its Fox’s Biscuits business to CTH, a Belgian holding company related to Ferrero Group, for £246 million.

Following the deal, CTH will acquire Fox’s biscuit manufacturing sites at Batley and Kirkham, where Fox’s brand biscuits are produced, from Northern Food Grocery Group Limited (NFGG), a subsidiary of Boparan Holdings.

Previously, the Boparan Restaurant Group rescued restaurant chain Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK).

Denise Coates and family topped the tax payers' 2021 list as they paid £573m in taxes with a wealth of £7.166 billion.

They are followed by Glenn Gordon and family with a wealth of £3.186bn and tax liability of £436.4m, followed by Fred and Peter Done as they paid £191.3m in taxes on their wealth of £1.2bn.

According to the Sunday Times, a third (17) of the 50 business owners, celebrities and entrepreneurs who featured in last year’s rankings have paid more tax this year.

Sixteen of the individuals and families who made the 2020 Tax List are paying less tax this year, and a further 17 are paying so much less that they have fallen out of the top 50 altogether.

Notably, last year payment of £20.4m tax was necessary to make it to the list. This year that has plummeted to £13.1 million, down nearly 36 per cent, the report said.

More For You

Milton-Keynes

Eyewitnesses described hearing shouting before the shooting

iStock

Man shot dead by police outside Milton Keynes railway station

A MAN was shot dead by police outside Milton Keynes Central station after reports that he was carrying a firearm.

Thames Valley Police (TVP) said officers were called to the station at 12:55, where they challenged a suspect carrying a knife. The man moved towards officers before police fired at him.

Keep ReadingShow less
EXCLUSIVE: Eastern Eye wins press freedoms to help judges

SCRUTINY: The tribunal’s favourable verdict is an important win for accountability, say current and retired Asian judges (Pic credit: Getty Images/Leon Neal)

EXCLUSIVE: Eastern Eye wins press freedoms to help judges

A tribunal has ordered the body which appoints judges in England and Wales to disclose records it refused to give to Eastern Eye.

The decision is a major victory for press freedoms because it forces the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) to become more open and transparent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sunita-Williams-Reuters

Sunita Williams was part of the SpaceX Crew-9 mission and had been stranded in space for over nine months. (Photo: Reuters)

Reuters)

India looks amazing from space, says Sunita Williams

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams described India as "amazing" from space and expressed her intention to visit her "father's home country" to share her experiences on space exploration.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, she responded to a question about how India appeared from space and the possibility of collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Keep ReadingShow less
british-muslims-iStock

The study noted that this identification was not due to any doctrinal obligation but was influenced by the perception that many Muslims do not feel fully accepted as British. (Representational image: iStock)

iStock

Majority of British Muslims identify by faith first, study finds

A STUDY by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) has found that most British Muslims identify primarily with their religion rather than their nationality.

The research, based on a survey of 815 British Muslim adults by Whitestone Insight, revealed that 71 per cent of respondents identified as Muslim first, while 27 per cent identified as British, English, or Scottish first.

Keep ReadingShow less
Car Tax Changes: EV Owners Now Required to Pay for the First Time

Owners of electric vehicles registered on or after 1 April 2025 will pay £10 for the first year, followed by the standard VED rate of £195 from the second year. (Representational image: iStock)

iStock

Car tax changes take effect: EV owners to pay for first time

FROM today, 1 April 2025, electric cars, vans, and motorcycles in the UK will be subject to Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) for the first time.

The change, introduced in the 2022 Autumn Statement by former Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, aims to make motoring taxation fairer.

Keep ReadingShow less