Tax receipts go over £850bn for the first time

Tax receipts go over £850bn for the first time

Gross tax receipts have surpassed last years by £28.1bn, reaching a high of £857bn as stamp taxes, inheritance tax, and income tax increase drastically.

HMRC’s tax receipts have risen to £857bn in 2024/25, compared with £828.1bn in 2023/24. The total tax take was only £633bn pre Covid in 2019-20, up a staggering £200bn in just five years showing that the figure has more than doubled over the past two decades.

Property buyers were in a rush to get their house purchases over the line in March, which shows in the stamp duty land tax data with almost £600m (23% rise) more paid in March 2025 than in 2024.

Last month £1.4bn was paid in stamp duty land tax, the highest this figure has been in March since 2022 when it reached £1.34bn. It’s no surprise transactions were high due to stamp duty thresholds increasing from the start of April 2025.

Income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are also continuously increasing, taking £23.4bn in income tax in March 2025. Three years ago just a few months of the year would take over £20bn in income tax, but now it has become the norm. Only a couple of months in the last tax year there have been less than £20bn paid in income tax in one month.

A record amount of National Insurance Contributions (NIC) was paid in March, surpassing £15.1bn despite the 4p reduction in NICs by former chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Almost £600m more was paid than the previous year.

Frozen income tax thresholds, which have now remained stagnant since 2021, have also seen an increasing number of people paying income tax for the first time, as well as dragging many into higher rates each year.

Inheritance tax (IHT) receipts also broke last year’s previous high and has done so for the past four years in a row. This year £8.2bn has been paid in IHT, up from £7.5bn in 2023/24, and £7.1bn in 2022/23.