Lord Alan Sugar reveals how much tax he pays in Twitter spat with Ricky Gervais

It appears that General Election tensions have reached fever pitch in the last couple of days, with celebrities getting more irate than ever over who they reckon their British fans should vote for in today’s [June 8] election.

However, what we didn’t quite expect was for business tycoon Lord Alan Sugar to be so desperate to prove a point that he’d share exactly how much tax he pays each year – and we warn you, the staggering amount might just make you weep.

It all started when Lord Sugar took to his popular social media page to slam Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, with one of Corbyn’s main policies being that he’ll increase tax on the richest 5% of the country.

Writing to his 5million followers, the Apprentice star wrote: “If you admire or trust me, an East end boy done good by honest graft, for the good of the UK I sincerely advise NOT to vote for Corbyn #TRUSTME.”

Comic Ricky Gervais quickly hit back, retweeting Sugar’s original message and adding: “Whether you admire Lord Sugar or not, if you earn less than £70,000 a year, from honest graft, you should definitely vote labour. #TRUSTME”, hinting that Lord Sugar is only looking out for his bank balance.

Many other Labour supporters followed suit, accusing Sugar of being desperate to avoid paying heightened taxes under Corbyn’s leadership, even suggesting that the star is currently involved in a tax avoidance scam.

Responding to his critics, Lord Sugar shared a photo of a check that proved he’d paid a huge £58,646,028.44 to the taxman back in January, writing: “To the people who have responded to my advice not to vote for Corbyn saying I want to avoid paying tax. I paid this personally in January.”

The tweet has since been deleted.

Lord Sugar’s disdain for Jeremy Corbyn is particularly interesting as back in 2009 the star was made a Labour peer for life, however, he quit the party in 2015 after 18 years, slamming Labour’s “negative” stance on business.

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