An individual savings account is a class of retail investment arrangement available to residents of the United Kingdom. First introduced in 1999, the accounts have favourable tax status. Payments into the account are made from after-tax income, then the account is exempt from income tax and capital gains tax on the investment returns, and no tax is payable on money withdrawn from the scheme.
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.
A pay-as-you-earn tax (PAYE), or pay-as-you-go (PAYG) in Australia, is a withholding of taxes on income payments to employees. Amounts withheld are treated as advance payments of income tax due. They are refundable to the extent they exceed tax as determined on tax returns. PAYE may include withholding the employee portion of insurance contributions or similar social benefit taxes. In most countries, they are determined by employers but subject to government review. PAYE is deducted from each paycheck by the employer and must be remitted promptly to the government. Most countries refer to income tax withholding by other terms, including pay-as-you-go tax.
Corporation tax in the United Kingdom is a corporate tax levied in on the profits made by UK-resident companies and on the profits of entities registered overseas with permanent establishments in the UK.
His Majesty's Revenue and Customs is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes, the payment of some forms of state support, the administration of other regulatory regimes including the national minimum wage and the issuance of national insurance numbers. HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise, which took effect on 18 April 2005. The department's logo is the Tudor Crown enclosed within a circle.
In the United Kingdom, taxation may involve payments to at least three different levels of government: central government, devolved governments and local government. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, National Insurance contributions, value added tax, corporation tax and fuel duty. Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds, business rates in England, Council Tax and increasingly from fees and charges such as those for on-street parking. In the fiscal year 2023–24, total government revenue was forecast to be £1,139.1 billion, or 40.9 per cent of GDP, with income taxes and National Insurance contributions standing at around £470 billion.
The Climate Change Levy (CCL) is a tax on energy delivered to non-domestic users in the United Kingdom.
Stamp duty in the United Kingdom is a form of tax charged on legal instruments, and historically required a physical stamp to be attached to or impressed upon the document in question. The more modern versions of the tax no longer require a physical stamp.
In the United Kingdom, inheritance tax is a transfer tax. It was introduced with effect from 18 March 1986, replacing capital transfer tax. The UK has the fourth highest inheritance tax rate in the world, according to conservative think tank, the Tax Foundation, though only a very small proportion of the population pays it. 3.7% of deaths recorded in the UK in the 2020-21 tax year resulted in inheritance tax liabilities.
IR35 is the United Kingdom's anti-avoidance tax legislation, the intermediaries legislation contained in Chapter 8 of Income Tax Act 2003. The legislation is designed to tax 'disguised' employment at a rate similar to employment. In this context, "disguised employees" means workers who receive payments from a client via an intermediary, i.e. their own limited company, and whose relationship with their client is such that had they been paid directly they would be employees of the client.
Working Tax Credit (WTC) is a state benefit in the United Kingdom made to people who work and receive a low income. It was introduced in April 2003 and is a means-tested benefit. Despite the name, tax credits are not to be confused with tax credits linked to a person's tax bill, because they are used to top-up low wages. Unlike most other benefits, it is paid by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).
In the UK tax system, personal allowance is the threshold above which income tax is levied on an individual's income. A person who receives less than their own personal allowance in taxable income in a given tax year does not pay income tax; otherwise, tax must be paid according to how much is earned above this level. Certain residents are entitled to a larger personal allowance than others. Such groups include: the over-65s, blind people, and married couples where at least one person in the marriage was born before 6 April 1935. People earning over £100,000 a year have a smaller personal allowance. For every £2 earned above £100,000, £1 of the personal allowance is lost; meaning that incomes high enough will not have a personal allowance.
Air Passenger Duty (APD) is an excise duty which is charged on the carriage of passengers flying from a United Kingdom or Isle of Man airport on an aircraft that has an authorised take-off weight of more than 5.7 tonnes or more than twenty seats for passengers. The duty is not payable by inbound international passengers who are booked to continue their journey within 24 hours of their scheduled time of arrival in the UK. If a passenger "stops-over" for more than 24 hours, duty is payable in full.
In the United Kingdom, the value added tax (VAT) was introduced in 1973, replacing Purchase Tax, and is the third-largest source of government revenue, after income tax and National Insurance. It is administered and collected by HM Revenue and Customs, primarily through the Value Added Tax Act 1994.
The 2012 United Kingdom budget was delivered by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on Wednesday 21 March 2012.
The Research and Development Expenditure Credit (RDEC), introduced in 2013, is a UK tax incentive designed to encourage large companies to invest in R&D in the UK. Companies can reduce their tax bill or claim payable cash credits as a proportion of their R&D expenditure.
The Apprenticeship Levy is a UK tax on employers which is used to fund apprenticeship training.
Welsh Rates of Income Tax (WRIT) is part of the UK income tax system and from 6 April 2019 a proportion of income tax paid by taxpayers living in Wales is transferred straight to the Welsh Government to fund Welsh public services. It is administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), but it is not a devolved tax comparable to Scottish income tax.
The 1996 United Kingdom budget was delivered by Kenneth Clarke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 26 November 1996. It was Clarke's fourth budget, the last to be delivered during his tenure as chancellor, the last budget to be presented by the Conservative government of John Major before the party was defeated by Labour in the 1997 general election, and it was the last fully Conservative budget until July 2015. Prior to Clarke's budget statement being presented to the House of Commons, its contents were leaked to the Daily Mirror, which returned the document to the government but decided to print some of the details, thus helping Tony Blair, then the leader of the Opposition, to prepare his response. Clarke described his statement as one that outlined a "Rolls-Royce recovery – built to last" and predicted economic growth of 2.5% for 1997 and 3.5% for 1998, but Blair dismissed it as "a last-gasp budget of a government whose time is up".
The 1984 United Kingdom budget was delivered by Nigel Lawson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the House of Commons on 13 March 1984. It was the first budget to be presented by Lawson, who had been appointed as chancellor after the 1983 general election, and saw him embark on "a radical programme of tax reform". These included a reduction in Corporation Tax and a cut in the higher rate of Transfer Tax and raised the Stamp Duty threshold.
