HMRC rings in the holidays with record tax take nearing £850 Billion

Tom Goddard,  Senior Associate said:

HMRC and the Treasury can toast the New Year thanks to record tax takings. The total tax receipts for the 12 months ending in November 2024 were up by £25bn compared to the same period to November 2023, and the total tax takings for the year are getting close to £850 billion.

Both income tax as a whole, and that which is collected via Pay As You Earn (PAYE) are showing increases on the year of approximately 7.5% and 8.3% respectively. Total income tax receipts are currently just shy of the £290bn mark for the previous 12 months, with close to £250bn of that being collected via PAYE. Both these figures represent record takings for a 12 month period. These figures evidence the upward trend in salary increases that have been prevalent throughout the 2024 year.

While Labour’s October budget presented a rhetoric of avoiding increasing tax on the general public, HMRC’s statistics show this is not being reflected in a monetary sense. The concept of fiscal drag, whereby individuals are brought into higher rate tax bands due to frozen tax thresholds and increasing salaries, remains the shadowy ace up the governments sleeve for increasing tax revenues.

It is not only personal taxation receipts which are filling the stockings at HMRC. Corporation tax takings are up 10% on the year and are closing in on the £90bn mark for the last 12 months. This will no doubt be surpassed once the figures for the quarterly payment deadline for large corporations are in at the end of December.

However, there remain a few lumps of coal in the form of the National Insurance Contributions (NIC) and Capital Gains Tax (CGT) tax streams, both of which are down on the year. With NIC receipts 2.2% lower than the same period 12 months ago, and CGT 12.3% down. But these receipts, particularly CGT, will bounce back after the higher CGT rate increases to 24% effective from the 30th of October 2025.

Tom adds:

No doubt when the end of year figures are released, and the January self-assessment deadline spurs taxpayers into action, we will be seeing more record tax takings by HMRC.

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