According to the latest figures available from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the top one per cent of taxpayers contribute close to 60 per cent of the total personal tax take in the UK.
However, the amount an individual needs to earn to fall into that one per cent has fallen from £170,000 in 2015 to a mere £166,000 in 2016/17, which is the latest year for which there are finalised numbers.
According to a forecast by HMRC, the richest tenth of taxpayers will pay £110 billion in income tax in 2018/19, which will account for almost 60 per cent of the total income tax take.
If this is the case, this means that the figures represent a record amount of income tax for this section of UK society, beating the £107 billion paid by the top tenth of taxpayers in 2015/16 and up from £106 billion the year before.
The forecast also suggests that while the total amount paid in income tax is projected to rise to record levels, the share of income tax liability shouldered by the UK’s higher earners will continue its long-term upward trend as well. In fact, the richest one per cent will pay 27.9 per cent of all income tax in 2018/19.
Meanwhile, predictions suggest that the poorest cohort will be liable for just 9.5 per cent, which is a decline from 11.2 per cent in 2009/10.
Interestingly, this is despite predictions that the share of all pre-tax taxpayer income earned by the poorest half of taxpayers will increase from 25.4 per cent to 28.4 per cent, while the share earned by the richest 10 per cent will decrease from 31.6 per cent to 28.6 per cent over the same period.