May’s tax payments for the years 2011/12 to 2014/15 are listed in a document supplied by Coutts Bank, which is usually regarded as providing bank services to high net worth individuals.

According to this, May’s sole source of income is her employment as an MP and home secretary, with her earnings given as £118,462 in the last financial year, when she also received £617 in interest payments and £5,419 in dividends.

May recorded net capital gains during the year of £5,033 while her total tax bill was just over £40,000.  These figures are broadly similar over the five years, although she made charitable donations under gift aid of over £3,700 in two of those years, and the payments she received as interest were higher in early years, coming in at almost £6,000 in 2012/13.

Her rival, Leadsom, has produced accounts just for the year ended April 5 2015, prepared by the accountants Isis Business Solutions, based in Wellingborough. On its website, the ACCA-qualified firm says ‘we take ownership of your problems’ and claims it is not ‘part of the pinstriped and horn-rimmed brigade’ of ‘traditional stuffy accountants’. 

These show her employment income as £76,597, supplemented by £2,324 in dividends and £5,009 in interest payments. Leadsom made £655 in gift aid payments and claimed £9,270 in capital gains. Her tax amounted to £22,621.

Leadsom has come under fire during the leadership campaign for failing to provide more details of her finances, and in particular her earnings related to a directorship in a buy-to-let property company called Bandal Ltd which she set up with her husband in 2003. The company bought three houses in Oxford with mortgages from a bank based in Jersey. Subsequently a quarter of the shares in the company were put into a trust in the names of the couple’s children.