Londoners contribute the most tax in the UK

New research from The Global Payroll Association (GPA), has revealed the areas of the UK where residents contribute the highest amount of income tax and it’s London’s boroughs that dominate the list, along with Buckinghamshire and Edinburgh.

GPA has studied income tax data from HMRC to reveal which local authority districts are paying the largest amount of income tax as a proportion of the total national contribution.

The latest available data reveals that across the UK, 32.7 million taxpayers contributed a grand total of £222.2 billion in income tax on a yearly basis.

On a regional level, the highest tax bill is paid by the residents of London, whose contribution of £59.3 billion is equivalent to 26.7% of the national total.

This is followed by the residents of the South East and East of England who contribute 18.6% and 10.6% of the national total respectively, while Northern Ireland contributes the smallest share at just 1.5%.

Local Authority analysis

No surprise then that when analysing the figures at local authority level, it’s London’s boroughs that dominate the list of highest tax contributions.

In Kensington & Chelsea alone, a total contribution of £4.9 billion is equivalent to 2.2% of all income tax paid across the nation each year. This is followed by the residents of Westminster (£4.5bn), Camden (£4.080bn), and Wandsworth (£3.990bn).

The first non-London authority on the list is Buckinghamshire which comes in at number five. Here, the locals contribute a total income tax bill of just over £3.6 billion per year.

The City of Edinburgh ranks eighth in the top twenty highest tax paying locations, with residents contributing £32.4bn per year, while other non-London appearances are made by Elmbridge (£2.110bn), Cheshire East (£2.060bn), North Yorkshire (£2.030bn), Leeds (£1.980bn), Birmingham (£1.830bn), and Wiltshire (£1.810bn).

Melanie Pizzey, CEO and Founder of the Global Payroll Association, said, “Nobody enjoys paying income tax, but it’s essential and unavoidable and ensures we can all contribute to the continued success of our nation’s economy.

That said, nobody should ever pay more income tax than they owe but this happens more than you’d like to think.

Errors are most likely to occur when there’s a change in your information and this isn’t successfully communicated from one aspect of a business to the payroll department.

These errors are most prone to happen when you start a new role in your company, receive a pay rise, or start a new job.

In any of these situations, it’s important to check the tax code stated on your payslip and ensure it’s correct based on your expected income. If it’s wrong, HMRC may well take more tax from you than they should and it can take some time to rectify.”