In 2022/23 approximately *****million taxpayers in the United Kingdom earned between 20,000 and 29,999 British pounds in this tax year, the most of any income level, while approximately *******taxpayers in the UK earned over one million pounds.

In 2023/24, households in the top decile in the United Kingdom paid, on average, 48,189 British pounds in income tax, compared with the lowest income decile which paid around 1,783 pounds per year.

Proportion of businesses and individuals (excluding employees who pay tax through PAYE) who pay tax on time – we will use VAT as a lead indicator.

Households in the Indian and White Other ethnic groups received the highest percentage of their income from employment out of all ethnic groups.

Mean and Median Income (Personal incomes by tax year) from the Survey of Personal Incomes by HMRC. These are estimates based on a survey and should be treated with caution. They are based on the Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) an annual sample survey of HMRC records for individuals who could be liable to UK Income Tax.

Further data on self-employment income, employment income, pension income and total tax are available from the HMRC website.

Here is a GLA Intelligence Update analysing this data in 2007/08:

Link to HMRC website, and Local Authority data source.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) is based on information held by HM Revenue and Customs tax offices on individuals who could be liable to UK income tax. It is carried out annually by HMRC and covers income assessable to tax for each tax year. Not all of them are taxpayers because the operation of personal reliefs and allowances may remove them from liability. Where income exceeds the threshold for operation of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE), the survey provides the most comprehensive and accurate official source of data on personal incomes.

The SPI is compiled to provide a quantified evidence base from which to cost proposed changes to tax rates, personal allowances and other tax reliefs for Treasury Ministers. It is used to inform policy decisions within HMRC and the Treasury, as well as for tax modelling and forecasting purposes. In addition, it is used to provide summary information for the National Accounts that are prepared by the Office for National Statistics. Finally, it is used to provide information to Members of Parliament, other Government Departments, companies, organisation and individuals.

The UK Data Archive currently holds the Public Use Tape (PUT) data for 1985-86 and 1995-96 onwards (data for 2008-09 is currently unavailable). For further details of sampling and coverage criteria, see documentation. Further information about the SPI, including income tax and personal incomes statistics, is available on the GOV.UK Statistics about personal incomes webpage.




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The Public Use Tape (PUT) dataset is an anonymised dataset and is based on the SPI. It allows users to produce their own analysis. The dataset contains a range of variables about personal incomes arising from employment, self employment, pension, benefits, property, savings, investments and other income sources. The dataset also contains variables about allowances, deductions and reliefs, which people might be due. There is also a regional code variable on the dataset and a trade code for cases which are self-employed. A list of data items on the Public Use Tape is provided in Annex A of the documentation.

As shown by the recent crisis, tax evasion poses a significant problem for countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. While these societies certainly possess weaker fiscal institutions as compared to other EU members, might broader cultural differences between northern and southern Europe also help to explain citizens’ (un)willingness to pay their taxes? To address this question, we conduct laboratory experiments in the UK and Italy, two countries which straddle this North-South divide. Our design allows us to examine citizens’ willingness to contribute to public goods via taxes while holding institutions constant. We report a surprising result: when faced with identical tax institutions, redistribution rules and audit probabilities, Italian participants are significantly more likely to comply than Britons. Overall, our findings cast doubt upon “culturalist” arguments that would attribute cross-country differences in tax compliance to the lack of morality amongst southern European taxpayers.

Provides general information on all HMRC taxes, including tax receipts, the number of taxpayers, personal tax credits, child benefit and estimates of the cost of tax expenditures and structural relief.

Source agency: HM Revenue and Customs

Designation: National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Revenue Based Taxes

75% of households from the Bangladeshi ethnic group were in the 2 lowest income quintiles (after housing costs were deducted) between April 2021 and March 2024.