Overview
- The actor told Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud Podcast that most of her Disney income went to the tax man after it was placed in a trust during a 90 percent supertax era.
- She said family solicitor Stanley Passmore set up the trust, and that when she turned 21 the Inland Revenue demanded about 90 percent of her earnings.
- Mills fought the bill in the 1970s, won an initial ruling by Lord Denning, then lost when the House of Lords overturned it and her final appeal was rejected in 1975.
- She said the loss forced her to keep working in the United States and led to personal trade-offs, including sending her son to boarding school at age 10.
- Despite the setback, she worked steadily in TV and film, returned to cinemas in 2024 in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, and her story highlights how postwar UK tax policy hit high earners and poorly built trusts.