The highest paid 3,000 people in the UK pay more income tax than the bottom 9m, according to government statistics which highlight the impact of the ‘super-rich’ on tax revenues
HMRC’s published statistics show that the top 10% of earners pay more than 55% of the total income tax.
However, just under 3,000 people with a declared income above £2.7m will pay 4.2% of the total revenue from income tax in the current financial year, according to additional figures released by HMRC following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.
The figures also suggest that the top 0.1% of workers, which equates to around 30,000 people with a minimum declared income of £670,000, pay 11.3% of all income tax.
In contrast, out of the total of 29.9m people who pay income tax in the UK, nine million workers on the lowest level of pay contribute less than 4% of the total income tax receipt.
The tax figures form part of an analysis of the growing divide between rich and poor in the UK for the Channel 4 programme Dispatches, which also examines comparative rates of experiences of crime, educational achievement and life expectancy.
The figures were produced as a result of a FoI request by the Spectator magazine.
The programme, How The Rich Get Richer, will be shown on Channel 4 tonight, Monday 17 November, at 8pm. Details are here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/
