As of May 2025, approximately 41 percent of people in Great Britain thought that the UK government was taxing and spending too much, compared with 23 percent who thought taxes and spending were too low, and just 12 percent who felt that the balance was about right.

In 2024/25 VAT tax receipts in the United Kingdom amounted to just over 170 billion British pounds, compared with 168 billion in the previous financial year. Along with income tax and National Insurance contributions, VAT is one of the three-largest taxation sources for the UK government. Unlike income tax and national insurance, VAT is an indirect tax, and is raised via a 20 percent levy applied on most goods and services sold in the UK. Tax revenue during the pandemic VAT tax revenue took quite a significant hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, with receipts falling from just under 130 billion pounds in 2019/20 to around 102 billion in 2020/21. The lockdowns enforced by the UK government clearly had an effect on consumer spending, but also impacted taxes associated with travel. Revenue from air passenger duties also fell, from 3.6 billion pounds to just 590 million, elsewhere fuel duties fell from 27.6 billion to 20.9 billion. How UK taxes are spent For the 2025/26 financial year, the UK government is expected to spend 379 billion pounds on social protection, which includes spending on housing benefits and pensions. After social protection, health had the next largest budget, at 277 billion pounds, followed by education at 146 billion. As of this year, the government was paying 116 billion pounds on debt interest, while defence spending was 83 billion pounds.

Main tables from the Effects of taxes and benefits on household income publication from 1977, including average incomes, taxes and benefits and household characteristics of all, retired and non-retired households in the UK by quintile and decile groups.

In 2025/26, the budgeted expenditure of the United Kingdom government is expected to be reach 1,335 billion British pounds, with the highest spending function being the 379 billion pounds expected to be spent on social protection, which includes pensions and other welfare benefits. Government spending on health was expected to be 277 billion pounds and was the second-highest spending function in this fiscal year, while education was the third-highest spending category at 146 billion pounds. UK government debt approaching 100 percent of GDP At the end of the 2024/25 financial year, the UK's government debt amounted to approximately 2.8 trillion British pounds, around 96 percent of GDP that year. This is due to the UK having to borrow money to cover its spending commitments, especially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when this deficit amounted to 314.6 billion pounds. Without significant cuts to spending or tax rises, the current government is aiming to reduce this debt by creating a stronger, more productive economy. Though this is how Britain's post WW2 debt was reduced, the country faces far more structural problems to growth than it did in the mid 20th century. Income Tax the UK's main revenue source Income Tax is expected to raise approximately 329 billion British pounds in the 2025/26 financial year, and be the largest revenue source for the government that year. Value Added Tax (VAT) receipts are expected to raise 214 billion pounds, with National Insurance contributions reaching 199 billion pounds. Although National Insurance rates for employees has actually fallen recently, the rate which employers pay was one of the main tax rises announced in the Autumn 2024 budget, rising from 13.8 percent to 15 percent. Though this avoided raising tax for workers directly, many UK businesses were critical of the move, with taxation seen as the main issue facing them at the start of 2025.

It is difficult to measure public views on tradeoffs between spending priorities because public understanding of existing government spending is limited and the budgetary problem is complicated. We present a new measurement strategy using a continuous treatment, multivariate choice experiment. The experiment proposes deficit-neutral bundles of changes in spending and taxation, allowing us to investigate attitudes towards modifications to the existing budget. We then use a structural choice model to estimate public preferences over spending categories and the taxation level, on average and as a function of respondent attributes. In our application, we find that the UK public favours paying more in tax to finance large spending increases across major budget categories; that spending preferences are multidimensional; and that younger people prefer lower levels of taxation and spending than older people.

In 2022/23, income tax accounted for 9.8 percent of gross domestic product in the United Kingdom, the largest tax as a share of GDP in this financial year. Throughout this time period, income tax has accounted for the highest share of GDP among UK taxes, followed by VAT and National Insurance Tax being the second-largest tax, depending on the relevant year. What does the government spend this on? For the 2025/26 fiscal year, the UK government expects to spend around 379 billion British pounds on social protection, which includes spending on pensions and welfare. The budget for health spending is 277 billion pounds, followed by 146 billion pounds on education. Since the 1980s, the share of GDP the UK spends on health has increased substantially, growing from four percent in 1984/85, to seven percent before the COVID-19 pandemic. By contrast, spending on defence fell from 4.6 percent of GDP to just 1.8 percent in the same time period. Debt approaching 100 percent of GPD The fourth-largest spending category in the latest UK government budget was that of debt interest, at a substantial 126 billion pounds. After taking a significant economic hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK's government debt increased from around 80 percent of GDP, to almost 97 percent in one fiscal year. Although that debt is not expected to increase further in the coming years, the costs of financing that debt has put immense pressure on government finances, especially with rising borrowing costs.

Time series data for public sector finances and important fiscal aggregates, based on the new European System of Accounts 2010: ESA10 framework.

In March 2025, the fiscal headroom forecast in the United Kingdom was 9.9 billion British pounds, the same amount predicted in October 2024. Fiscal headroom is the amount of money the UK government can use to increase spending or cut taxes while still adhering to fiscal rules regarding national debt falling in the future.

Public sector net debt amounted to 95.8 percent of gross domestic product in the United Kingdom during the 2024/25 financial year, or 90 percent when the Bank of England is excluded. UK government debt is at its highest levels since the early 1960s, due to a significant increase in borrowing during the COVID-19 pandemic. After peaking at 251.7 percent shortly after the end of the Second World War, government debt in the UK gradually fell, before a sharp increase in the late 2000s at the time of the global financial crisis. Debt not expected to start falling until 2029/30 In 2024/25, the UK's government expenditure was approximately 1.28 trillion pounds, around 44.7 percent of GDP. This spending was financed by 1.13 trillion pounds of revenue raised, and 151 billion pounds of borrowing. Although the UK government can still borrow money in the future to finance its spending, the amount spent on debt interest has increased significantly recently. Recent forecasts suggest that while the debt is eventually expected to start declining, this is based on falling government deficits in the next five years. Government facing hard choices Hitting fiscal targets, such as reducing the national debt, will require a careful balancing of the books from the current government, and the possibility for either spending cuts or tax rises. Although Labour ruled out raising the main government tax sources, Income Tax, National Insurance, and VAT, at the 2024 election, they did raise National Insurance for employers (rather than employees) and also cut Winter Fuel allowances for large numbers of pensioners. Less than a year after implementing cuts to Winter Fuel, the government performed a U-Turn on the issue, and will make it widely available by the winter of 2025.

UK government revenue is expected to rise to 1.23 trillion pounds in 2025/26, up from 1.13 trillion in 2024/25.

US and UK spending, taxes, and pharma

FOCUSON**LONDON**2010:**INCOME**AND**SPENDING**AT**HOME** Household income in London far exceeds that of any other region in the UK. At £900 per week, London’s gross weekly household income is 15 per cent higher than the next highest region. Despite this, the costs to each household are also higher in the capital. Londoners pay a greater amount of their income in tax and national insurance than the UK average as well as footing a higher bill for housing and everyday necessities. All of which leaves London households less well off than the headline figures suggest. This chapter, authored by Richard Walker in the GLA Intelligence Unit, begins with an analysis of income at both individual and household level, before discussing the distribution and sources of income. This is followed by a look at wealth and borrowing and finally, focuses on expenditure including an insight to the cost of housing in London, compared with other regions in the UK. See other reports from this Focus on London series. REPORT: To view the report online click on the image below. Income and Spending Report PDF https://londondatastore-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/fol/fol10-income-cover-thumb1.png" alt="Alt text"> PRESENTATION: This interactive presentation finds the answer to the question, who really is better off, an average London or UK household? This analysis takes into account available data from all types of income and expenditure. Click on the link to access. PREZI The Prezi in plain text version RANKINGS: https://londondatastore-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/fol/fol10-income-tableau-chart-thumb.jpg" alt="Alt text"> This interactive chart shows some key borough level income and expenditure data. This chart helps show the relationships between five datasets. Users can rank each of the indicators in turn. Borough rankings Tableau Chart MAP: These interactive borough maps help to geographically present a range of income and expenditure data within London. Interactive Maps - Instant Atlas DATA: All the data contained within the Income and Spending at Home report as well as the data used to create the charts and maps can be accessed in this spreadsheet. Report data FACTS: Some interesting facts from the data… ● Five boroughs with the highest median gross weekly pay per person in 2009: -1. Kensington & Chelsea - £809 -2. City of London - £767 -3. Westminster - £675 -4. Wandsworth - £636 -5. Richmond - £623 -32. Brent - £439 -33. Newham - £422 ● Five boroughs with the highest median weekly rent for a 2 bedroom property in October 2010: -1. Kensington & Chelsea - £550 -2. Westminster - £500 -3. City of London - £450 -4. Camden - £375 -5. Islington - £360 -32. Havering - £183 -33. Bexley - £173 ● Five boroughs with the highest percentage of households that own their home outright in 2009: -1. Bexley – 38 per cent -2. Havering – 36 per cent -3. Richmond – 32 per cent -4. Bromley – 31 per cent -5. Barnet – 28 per cent -31. Tower Hamlets – 9 per cent -32. Southwark – 9 per cent

The average weekly expenditure per household on mortgage interest payments and council tax in the UK was 53.30 British pounds as of year-end 2023. It can be seen that households spent an average of 28.8 British pounds per week on council tax (domestic rates). Furthermore, households stated that they spent far less (on average one British pounds) per week on mortgage protection premiums at that time.

This statistic shows the government revenue and spending in the United Kingdom from 2020 to 2024, with projections up until 2030. In 2024, the government revenue in the United Kingdom amounted to around 1,091.68 billion pounds, while government spending came to around 1,255.57 billion pounds.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This analysis, produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), examines how taxes and benefits redistribute income between various groups of households in the United Kingdom. It shows where different types of households and individuals are in the income distribution and looks at the changing levels of income inequality over time. The main sources of data for this study are:

• Family Expenditure Survey (FES) from 1977-2001
• Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS) from 2001-2007
• Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) from 2008 to 2017
• Household Finances Survey (HFS) from 2018 onwards
  

Some variables have been created by combining data from the LCF (previously FES or EFS) with control totals from a variety of different government sources, including:

• United Kingdom National Accounts (ONS Blue Book)
• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
• Department for Transport (DfT)
• Department of Health (DH)
• Department for Education and Employment (DfEE)
• Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)

For further information, see the ONS Effects of taxes and benefits on household income webpage.

Users should note that this combined ETB household (1977-2021) and person (2018-2021) datasets replace all previous individual year files, which have been withdrawn from use at the depositor's request.

Latest edition information

For the second edition (September 2022), revised data for 2019/20 and new cases for 2020/21 were added to the household and person files.

Method of Data Collection
The ETB has been produced each year since 1961 and is an annual analysis looking at how taxes and benefits affect the income of households in the UK.

Since 2018, the estimates in this analysis are based on data derived from the HFS Survey (the HCF is not currently held by the UK Data Service). The HFS is an annual survey of the expenditure and income of private households. People living in hotels, lodging houses, and in institutions such as old people's homes are excluded. Each person aged 16 and over keeps a full record of payments made during 14 consecutive days and answers questions about hire purchase and other payments; children aged 7 to 15 keep a simplified diary. The respondents also give detailed information, where appropriate, about income (including cash benefits received from the state) and payments of Income Tax. Information on age, occupation, education received, family composition and housing tenure is also obtained. The survey is continuous, interviews being spread evenly over the year to ensure that seasonal effects are covered. The Family Spending publication also includes an outline of the survey design.

The HFS data used in this analysis are grossed so that totals reflect the total population of private households in the UK. The weights are produced in two stages. First, the data are weighted to compensate for non-response (sample-based weighting). The non-response weights are then calibrated so that weighted totals match population totals for males and females in different age groups and for different regions and countries (population-based weighting). The results in the analysis are weighted so that statistics represent the total population in private households in the UK based on 2011 Census data. In 2013/14, an additional calibration to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) employment totals was also applied.

There are a number of different measures of income used, the most common of which is probably household disposable income. This is the total income households receive from employment (including self-employment), income from private pensions, investments and other sources, plus cash benefits (including the state pension), minus direct taxes (including income tax, NI and council tax). Income is normally analysed at the household level as this provides a better measure of people's economic well-being; while income is usually received by individuals, it is normally shared with other household members (e.g. spouse/partner and children).

In 2018/19 a further adjustment was applied to the data to adjust for the under coverage and under-reporting of income of the richest individuals. This method is often referred to as the 'SPI adjustment' owing to its use of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC's) Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI). For further details please see the ETB Quality and Methodology Information webpage and the Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household Income Technical Report.

Data Sources

The Household Finances Survey (HFS) is the source of the microdata on households from 2018 onwards. Previously, the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) was the data source. Derived variables are created using information from...

Non-Domestic Rating data, including receipts/expenditure and costs of construction. Property attribute and transactions data underpin the information base necessary for the VOA to value properties correctly for property tax (Non-Domestic Rates and Council Tax) and for valuation work carried out for other public sector clients (e.g. Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax). By statute non-domestic properties are revalued every 5 years and then appeals and material changes of circumstances are dealt with thereafter. There is no single source of information and the valuation process involves bringing together various data sources. However the Form of Return is a key compenent to allow VOA to establish a fair market rent for properties, which is the basis of rating assessments. Updated: Every 5 years, in advance of a revaluation