Personal Incomes Statistics 2019 to 2020: Summary Statistics
Published 16 March 2022
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Throughout this summary, individual figures have been rounded independently to three significant figures. Therefore, the sum of component items may not necessarily add to the totals shown.
1. Taxpayer numbers
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there were 31.5 million taxpayers in the tax year 2019 to 2020, of those 17.9 million were male and 13.5 million female (Table 3.2 and Table 3.3)
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this represents a decrease of 200,000 taxpayers since the 2018 to 2019 tax year
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the number of male taxpayers decreased by 0.8%, while the number of female taxpayers is about the same
2. Total Income Breakdown
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the total income before tax received by taxpayers in the tax year 2019 to 2020 was £1,160 billion (Table 3.3)
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this is 3.3% higher than the total income reported in the previous tax year
Figure 2.1: Amount of income in the tax year ending 2020 and percentage change since tax year ending 2019 (Table 3.5 and Table 3.6)
| Type of income | Amount of income in billions | Percentage change since 2019 |
|---|---|---|
| Self-employment | £87 | +3.3% |
| Employment | £814 | +3.5% |
| Pension | £157 | +1.6% |
| Property, interest, dividend and other | £97 | +4.8% |
Figure 2.2: Proportion of income by type
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there were increases in all types of income over the tax year 2019 to 2020, with increases of 3.3% for self-employment income, 3.5% for employment income, 1.6% for pension income and 4.8% for property, interest, dividend and other income (Table 3.5 and Table 3.6)
- self-employment income accounts for the smallest proportion of total income at 7.6%
- employment income accounts for the largest proportion of total income at 70.4%
- pension income is 13.6% of total income
- property, interest, dividend and other income is 8.4% of the total income
3. Income Tax liabilities breakdown by tax rate
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Income Tax liabilities for tax year 2019 to 2020 were £189 billion (Table 3.4)
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total Income Tax liabilities increased by around £2.5 billion (1.4%) compared to the previous tax year
| Tax rate | Number in millions | Percentage of taxpayers | Percentage of total tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic rate | 26.5 | 84% | 34.3% |
| Higher rate | 3.8 | 12% | 33.0% |
| Additional rate | 0.4 | 1% | 32.2% |
| Savers rate | 0.7 | 2% | 0.5% |
Figure 3.1: The breakdown of Income Tax by the number of taxpayers and estimated tax liability for each marginal rate of tax
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there were 26.5 million basic rate taxpayers who accounted for 84% of taxpayers and 34.3% of total tax
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there were 3.8 million higher rate taxpayers who accounted for 12% of taxpayers and 33.0% of total tax
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there were 0.4 million additional rate taxpayers who accounted for 1% of taxpayers and 32.2% of total tax
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there were 0.7 million savers rate taxpayers who accounted for 2% of taxpayers and 0.5% of total tax
4. Total Income by Region/Country
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the region with the highest number of taxpayers was again the South East region with around 4.6 million (15%) of the total figure
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the region with the highest amount of total income was London, which saw an increase of around £6 billion since the tax year ending 2019 and reached £219 billion, however its share of total income remains unchanged at 19% (Table 3.11)
Figure 4.1: Type of Income by Region/Country
