Nigel Farage is using a private company to reduce his tax bill on his GB News media appearances and other outside employment in a television star-style arrangement that has in recent years become frowned on by major broadcasters.

The Reform UK leader diverts money from his prime-time TV show into his company, which means that he paid only 25% corporation tax on profits, instead of 40% income tax, and could offset some expenses.

The Clacton MP, who is also paid a £94,000-a-year MP’s salary, has in the past criticised people who try to avoid tax as the “common enemy” and has previously come under fire for setting up a trust fund in an offshore tax haven.

He has also claimed that some tax avoidance schemes were acceptable. “Most forms of legal tax avoidance are OK, but clearly some are not,” he said in 2014, adding that nobody voluntarily paid anything to HMRC while defending reducing a tax bill within the law.

Farage claimed last year to have “bought a house” in his constituency, but the property is actually owned in the name of his partner, meaning he legally avoided higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional home – given that he already owns other properties.

The use of personal service companies is not illegal, but it has been criticised across the political spectrum as a way to reduce tax bills. Farage has declined to publish his tax returns for 2023/24.

Several broadcasters including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have cracked down on the practice in recent years. HMRC has repeatedly tightened the rules around off-payroll working (IR35) to stop this kind of tax avoidance.

The parliamentary register of interests shows that Farage has made nearly £400,000 from GB News since August 2024, for about 190 hours’ work. This suggests he is being paid more than £2,000 an hour by the news channel.

All payments for his GB News work are paid directly to his company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, of which he is the director and only shareholder. He has other paid roles including as a brand ambassador for gold bullion firms, speaking on the international circuit, and a Daily Telegraph column.

The latest accounts show that as of 31 May 2024, the company had £1.7m in cash, up over £1m in a year. It also owns two investment properties.

As Farage’s profile has soared with the rise of Reform UK, so has the value of the company, which is now worth £2.6m, up £2m from 2021.

A spokesperson for Farage said: “Thorn in the Side Ltd has traded for 15 years and has a variety of interests. It renders the services of several contractors and is a properly functioning company.”

Farage has not been overly critical of Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, saying “jolly good luck to her” when she was criticised by the Tories over her tax affairs over the summer. However, after it emerged that she had underpaid stamp duty on a seaside flat, he said: “I don’t see how she can survive this.”

The Reform leader is due to appear at his party’s conference on Friday in Birmingham, giving a speech at 4pm on its next steps. Earlier this week, he was in the US embracing more openly hard-right rhetoric by calling the influence of Islam in the UK a “literally catastrophe”, and praising Donald Trump’s mass round-up of migrants.

Migration had fundamentally changed the UK, he told Fox News, speaking before he gave evidence to a congressional inquiry on “Europe’s threat to American speech and innovation”.

“You said to me once, you went through parts of London, you didn’t even recognise it to be England,” he told the host, Sean Hannity. “So, please, America, take the warnings. Recognise why President Trump is brave and true and right to control the southern border and to make sure you keep your American culture.”