Almost half the population pay no income tax

NEARLY half of all Britons pay no income tax while the richest are shouldering the biggest burden on record, a new analysis has found.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that the proportion of working-age adults who do not pay income tax has risen from 34.3 per cent to 43.8 per cent, equivalent to 30 million people.

Over the same period the proportion of income tax paid by the richest 1 per cent has risen from 24.4 per cent to 27.5 per cent, meaning that 300,000 people pay more than a quarter of the nation’s income tax.

The IFS said that the change had been driven by George Osborne’s policies of tax cuts for low earners and hikes for those who earn the most.

Under Mr Osborne the personal allowance has risen from £6,475 to £10,600 a year, lifting millions of people out of the basic rate of income tax entirely. Over the same period 1.6 million people have been dragged into paying the higher rate of income tax after the Chancellor repeatedly froze the threshold for the 40p rate.