Lord Sugar beats tax hike with bumper £181m payout

Lord Alan Sugar beat a hike in the tax rate on dividend payments by paying himself a bumper £181m in the last financial year.

Accounts filed by Sugar's holding company, Amshold, show £100m was paid in December 2015, followed by two payouts of £50m and £31m just two days apart in March last year, says the Daily Telegraph.

A spokesman for the tycoon confirmed to The Times the combined award, up from £9m a year earlier, was timed to beat an increase in dividend taxes for higher-rate taxpayers from 31 to 38 per cent in April.

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Andrew Bloch added: "For the avoidance of doubt, this dividend is not some offshore tax scheme. We wish to make it abundantly clear that Lord Sugar is paying the correct amount to the UK revenue."

Pre-tax profits generated by the company fell from £134m to £80m that year.

Having made his name in consumer electronics and computing in the 1980s with his Amstrad computers, Sugar's business interests are now mostly concentrated in commercial property.

Amshold controls a £500m property empire, including the Lever Building in London, which is let out to supermarket giant Tesco, and Gloucester House in Mayfair, the site of Hard Rock Cafe.

Its main redevelopment project is the Crosspoint in the heart of the City, a mix of office and retail units due to be completed this month, adds the Telegraph.

The company sold £130m worth of properties during the course of the 12 months, making a profit of £7.2m, says the Times. Sales included the Sugar Building in the City for £80m, four times its purchase price three years earlier.