Almost a quarter (24.1%) of all income tax and capital gains tax (CGT) is paid by just 100,000 people, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made by Wealth Club has revealed.

This equates to just 0.3% of all UK taxpayers.

Income tax and CGT are paid by 33.3 million people in the UK. Wealth Club’s FOI discovered that the nation’s top 100,000 taxpayers footed an average income and CGT bill of £559,000 each in 2021/22, a total up by 18% from the £475,000 in the previous year.

Meanwhile, the top 100 taxpayers in the UK collectively paid £4.6bn of income and CGT in 2021/22, the equivalent of £46m each. This was a 14% increase from the £3.9bn paid in the year before.

Wealth Club founder, Alex Davies, commented: “It is commonly claimed that wealthy individuals do not pay their fair share of tax. These figures prove what a myth that is. In fact, 100,000 people paid £55bn in tax, a staggering 24% of all income and capital gains receipts, despite making up just 0.3% of taxpayers.

“Moreover, the overall income and CGT take they are paying has risen by 45% in just five years, meaning not only are they paying more, but they are shouldering more of the increasingly heavy burden.”

Davies also suggested the figures mean that politicians should “tread carefully” when deciding future tax policy.

“The wealthy are a mobile bunch, proven by the fact that an estimated 3,200 millionaires are expected to leave the UK this year,” Davies added. “And they pay a significant proportion of the UK’s tax.

“If the top 100 taxpayers up sticks and move to sunnier tax climates, that would be £4.6bn less in tax receipts. If the top 1,000 taxpayers migrated out of the UK, that figure would rise to £11.5bn, leaving a massive gap in the country’s finances.”

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