The number of additional rate taxpayers increased by 9.5% between 2021/22 and 2022/23, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has revealed.

The Government’s tax collection agency’s personal income statistics also found that income tax liabilities of additional rate taxpayers increased by 3.2% to £83.4bn in the same period.

The number of basic rate taxpayers jumped by 2.9% in 2022/23, with the overall number of taxpayers in the UK increasing by 1.5 million.

However, the number of higher rate taxpayers increased by 15.3% to 5.1 million, with the amount of tax collected jumping by £11.5bn to £85.1bn.

Financial planning specialist at Evelyn Partners, Andy King, said: "This data reveals a marked increase in the number of taxpayers in the UK across the board, with more earners drawn into paying tax – possibly for the first time – at the basic rate, and many more being drawn into the upper tax bands.

"This is of course due to the process of fiscal drag, as inflationary pay rises pull more people across tax allowances and thresholds that have been frozen since April 2021 – a process that is still in full swing and will continue to increase the tax burden until the freeze is thawed, which will be 2028 at the earliest.

"What is remarkable is the extent to which basic-rate taxpayers are being drawn into the higher-rate tax band, where there was a 15.3% increase in the number of taxpayers to 5.1 million."

King added that the number of additional rate taxpayers was added before the additional rate threshold was cut from £150,000 to £125,140 from April 2023.

Therefore, a "huge influx of taxpayers" in to the highest rate is expected in the 2023/24 results.

King concluded: "Measures to mitigate higher income tax bills are thin on the ground, although it must be the case that many thousands of earners just below the £100,000 and £125,150 income levels are purposefully not trying to increase their earnings because they don’t think the extra work is worth the relatively meagre increase in post-tax income – especially for those who also lose tax-free child-care above £100,000. That can’t be good for economic growth or productivity in the UK.

"The main option open to many is to pay into a pension or to consider increasing those contributions as, while those funds will be locked away until age 55 or 57, this can afford tax relief at their top rate of income tax. Salary sacrifice pension schemes are particularly effective in this respect as not only do they offer additional relief from National Insurance (and possibly an extra boost from the employer’s NI saving), but also could prevent the saver stepping up into a higher tax bracket."

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