Eurosceptic Tories rallied to David Cameron’s (pictured with his mother, Mary) support last night in the row over his tax affairs

Eurosceptic Tories rallied to David Cameron’s support last night in the row over his tax affairs.

Their intervention came as Labour MPs drew accusations of acting like hyenas for tearing into the Prime Minister.

Michael Gove, Tory justice secretary and Brexit campaigner, said it was ‘crystal clear Mr Cameron had acted with integrity and probity throughout’.

The Prime Minister has taken the unprecedented step of publishing details of his tax returns dating back to 2009 in a bid to ease criticism of his mother and late father.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the disclosure did not go far enough, and demanded more details on whether Mr Cameron had profited from his father’s Panama-registered Blairmore fund.

He also faced criticism over a £200,000 gift made to him by his mother Mary, despite experts saying the move was a normal part of inheritance tax planning of the type used by thousands of middle-class families.

The Prime Minister, who admitted at the weekend he should have been quicker to reveal his finances, will hit back today in the Commons with a passionate defence of his parents and their actions.

Another Eurosceptic, justice minister Dominic Raab, said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn came in saying as leader of the Labour party he was going to introduce a kinder politics, and yet he’s been whipping up a mob mentality and engaging in leading these attacks and whipping Labour MPs who, some of them, are behaving frankly like hyenas. It’s grotesque hypocrisy – just about scoring political points.’

The fightback came as:

George Osborne and other ministers came under pressure to publish their tax returns;

Labour indicated it could ban parents from giving children tax-free gifts;

Ministers prepared action against firms that fail to stop staff dodging tax;

Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon published her tax return.

Mr Cameron’s decision to publish his on Saturday night came 48 hours after his dramatic TV confession that he had a £31,500 investment in Blairmore, which he sold months before becoming prime minister.

Downing Street was under pressure for days last week after the PM’s father Ian was named in the Panama Papers – leaked documents that detail the dealings of thousands of wealthy individuals.

But senior Eurosceptics last night rallied round, despite their anger at the Prime Minister’s controversial decision to spend £9.3million of taxpayers’ money sending a pro-EU leaflet to 27million homes.

Ian Cameron and Mary Cameron, the prime minister's parents, at a Tory party event in Swindon. Ian was mentioned in the Panama papers for tax avoidance, which has led to awkward questions for his son

Commons leader Chris Grayling said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is trying to take Britain back to the days of class war and economic stagnation. Labour’s attacks show just how out of touch they are.

‘Parents should be able to pass the fruit of their hard work on to their children and grandchildren. This Government has championed the cause of low taxation because we know it creates jobs and the money to pay for strong public services.’

Former defence secretary Liam Fox added: ‘David Cameron’s father worked hard and left his family money. They obeyed the law and paid their tax? So what? This witch-hunt by smear, innuendo and “asking questions” is grotesque and hypocritical. The PM’s critics should play the ball, not the man.’

Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said it was wrong to call Mrs Cameron’s gift to her son ‘tax avoidance’.

‘The rules are plain – you can give money from income, or give money more than seven years before you die and there’s no inheritance tax. Utilising that isn’t dodgy,’ he said.

BBC LED REPORTING BUT HELPED PAXMAN AND FIONA BRUCE AVOID HIGH INCOME TAX ON THEIR WAGES BY PAYING WAGES TO THEIR COMPANIES Stars including Jeremy Paxman and Fiona Bruce were among 148 of the corporation’s presenters paid through ‘personal service companies’ The BBC has led reporting about alleged tax avoidance revealed in the leaked Panama Papers – but it has itself been accused of dodging tax by paying its presenters ‘off the books’ through companies. Stars including Jeremy Paxman and Fiona Bruce were among 148 of the corporation’s presenters who were paid through ‘personal service companies’. There is no suggestion the presenters were seeking to avoid tax, and some said BBC bosses had encouraged them to set up the structures. Instead of paying the presenters through Pay As You Earn, the BBC channelled their salaries through the companies. This enabled them to declare the money as company profit, subject to corporation tax of 21 or 26 per cent, compared with income tax of 45 per cent for the highest rate earners. Using a service company also allowed individuals to deduct expenses like travel, phone bills and computer costs from their earnings. The practice, which also affected the senior broadcasters’ National Insurance contributions, was legal when it was revealed in 2012 and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing. Miss Bruce closed her company, Paradox Productions Two, and told trade magazine Broadcast she was ‘no longer required by the BBC to have a limited company’. Personal service companies were widely used by freelancers who did short-term work for multiple different companies. But George Osborne introduced a clampdown in last month’s Budget, saying public sector bodies including the NHS and the civil service would be held responsible for ensuring their workers paid the right tax rate. The BBC said it had paid up to 3,000 actors, editors, make-up artists and other ‘craft staff’ that way, and later admitted that nearly 150 presenters were paid through such companies. Bal Samra, the corporation’s commercial director, insisted: ‘The use of personal service companies is not a “tax dodge”, it is a legitimate method of engaging freelance presenters. ‘The Government has not ended it, but has proposed introducing a stronger requirement for public sector bodies to assess the employment status of workers and apply tax and National Insurance appropriately.’ Advertisement

GUARDIAN PUBLISHED PANAMA PAPERS BUT AVOIDED STAMP DUTY BY SETTING UP AN OFFSHORE COMPANY IN TAX HAVEN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS The newspaper at the centre of the Panama Papers expose in Britain has itself been accused of legal tax avoidance. Guardian Media Group (GMG), the publisher of the Guardian, used an offshore company in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands when it bought a magazine and events group with a private equity firm, Apax. The newspaper has campaigned against tax avoidance but GMG paid no stamp duty on the acquisition because of the complex arrangement, which it said was accepted by HM Revenue and Customs. GMG said the offshore company was created at Apax’s request, and insisted the UK Exchequer had not lost out. It also used an HMRC exemption to avoid corporation tax on the £302million profits of a sale of part of its stake in the publisher of AutoTrader in 2008. GMG said it paid full corporation tax on any taxable profits. The firm also has a fund portfolio which invests in offshore hedge funds, but is subject to UK tax on all income and realised gains. The blogger Guido Fawkes has repeatedly accused the company of hypocrisy. In 2012, when the newspaper ran an expose of tax avoiders using offshore firms to buy British property, the blogger revealed its London offices were owned by a tax exempt offshore trust managed from Germany. The Guardian’s then editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger addressed the suggestion of hypocrisy in a 2011 article about the paper’s finances and its relationship with GMG. He said: ‘If the argument is that no one should write critically about tax avoidance unless they can show total purity in all their dealings and investments, both personal and corporately, then the probable blunt truth is that not a single journalist would be able to write on the subject.’ Advertisement

But Mr Corbyn, who has yet to keep his promise of publishing his own tax return, yesterday claimed the Prime Minister still had questions to answer. The Labour leader told the BBC all MPs, and possibly others in public life, such as journalists, should be forced to publish their tax returns.

And he said Mr Cameron’s display of openness did not go far enough.

‘I want to see the papers,’ he said. ‘We need to know what he’s actually returned as a tax return, we need to know why he put this money overseas in the first place and whether he made anything out of it or not before 2010 when he became prime minister. These are questions that he must answer.’

Downing Street yesterday indicated that other ministers would not be expected to publish their tax returns. But Mr Osborne, as the steward of the nation’s finances, was under growing pressure to follow suit, having previously said he has nothing to hide. A Treasury source last night indicated the Chancellor was considering the idea.

Energy secretary Amber Rudd said Britain might have to move to a US-style system where senior politicians must declare their finances.

‘We have to think very carefully about the balance between transparency and privacy,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to put people off who might have substantial assets, so I think it’s worth having the debate but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that it is right.’

What about Red Ed's ploy to avoid duties on his father's home

Labour's assault on David Cameron’s tax affairs comes 12 months after the party faced claims that the Miliband family tried to avoid death duties.

Jeremy Corbyn savaged Mr Cameron’s conduct over the weekend, saying it suggested there was ‘one rule for the wealthy and another for the rest of us’.

Labour also indicated it may push for a change in the law to ban people from receiving tax-free gifts, as Mr Cameron did from his mother.

Labour's assault on David Cameron’s tax affairs comes 12 months after the party faced claims that the Miliband family tried to avoid death duties

But last year the party reacted with fury when critics pointed out that the family of its then-leader Ed Miliband appeared to have attempted to avoid paying full inheritance tax on his father’s home.

Legal documents show that the Milibands used a deed of variation to divide the ownership of the £2.5million family home in north London.

After Mr Miliband’s father Ralph died in 1994, the family agreed a deal in which his widow Marion retained 60 per cent of the equity in the property, with 20 per cent transferred to each of her sons, Ed and David.

LABOUR ARE PLANNING TO BAN TAX-FREE GIFTS FOR CHILDREN An inheritance tax crackdown that would ban people from giving tax-free gifts to their children is being examined by Labour. Senior party figures seized on revelations that David Cameron’s mother Mary gave him a £200,000 gift following the death of his father in 2010 as evidence that the inheritance tax system is flawed. The rules on gifts mean that if Mrs Cameron lives for another two years then her son will not be liable for any inheritance tax on the sum. In theory the move could save him up to £80,000. Financial experts yesterday pointed out that the rules on gifts in the inheritance tax system are legitimately used by thousands of families, with people often trying to help their children buy a home or fund their education. But shadow chancellor John McDonnell yesterday said the rules would now be included in a wide-ranging Labour Party review of the tax system. Mr McDonnell said people were ‘angry’ about the tax system because it was not seen to be ‘fair’. He said he would reverse Tory plans to raise the inheritance tax threshold from £325,000 to £500,000. Mark Serwotka, of the PCS union, said cash gifts to children should be taxed by a future Labour government. Advertisement

The decision appears to have been designed to limit the potential inheritance tax liability faced by her two sons.

If Marion had died after seven years, then inheritance tax would have been levied on only 60 per cent of the value of the home.

In the event the deed of variation was irrelevant, as David Miliband bought out his mother and brother in 2004 to take ownership of the home outright.

Ed Miliband said he had not avoided any dues because he had paid capital gains tax on his share of the family home when it was sold. But the revelation was embarrassing at a time when he was on the attack over the activities of ‘dodgy’ Tory donors.

Gordon Brown had previously referred to deeds of variation as a form of tax abuse. And George Osborne twisted the knife in the budget just before the election by announcing a Treasury review of the device.

The episode is far from the only example of Labour hypocrisy on tax avoidance.

Reports suggest the late Tony Benn also used legitimate tax planning strategies to reduce death duties on his £5million estate. After the death of his wife in the year 2000, a deed of variation was reportedly used to allow the couple’s children to take part ownership of the veteran socialist’s large family home in the fashionable Holland Park area of West London. The property was sold in 2011 for £4.1 million.

Mr Benn’s sprawling family home, Stansgate Abbey Farm, in Essex, which is thought to be worth many millions, was placed in trust on his death – another device that is thought to be designed to shield it from the taxman.

Labour faced controversy in 2013 when it emerged a huge £1.65million donation to the party was made in shares, not cash, in an apparent bid to avoid a £700,000 tax bill. John Mills said he made the donation to Labour in shares following advice from the party about the most ‘tax efficient’ way of handling the issue.