UK tax band explorer

The data is HMRC's Survey of Personal Incomes for 2022 to 2023: how many people, and how much tax, in each income range. Each range is spread evenly across its width and taxed under your rules. Each range is then scaled so that today's rules give HMRC's real figure, which is how the starting point matches £245bn.

Without behaviour, the model is static: nobody changes how much they earn or declare in response to a tax change. With it on, people at each income move their taxable income according to how much of each extra pound they keep. The strength of that response is an elasticity. Moderate uses 0.48 above £150,000, which is HMRC's central estimate from its 2012 analysis of the 50p rate, and 0.2 for everyone else, which is my judgement because ordinary earners respond much less. Strong uses 0.75 and 0.4. The Institute for Fiscal Studies re-analysed the 50p rate and found anything from 0.31 to 0.83. It stands in for working less, using pensions, incorporating and leaving the country, and the real range is wide. Treat the result as a guide to direction and rough size, not a forecast.

It covers income tax only, not National Insurance, and treats the UK as one system (Scotland sets its own rates). The data only includes people who already pay tax, so lowering the allowance below £12,570 understates the extra revenue.

The other countries' presets use each country's 2026 national income tax for a single person, applied to UK incomes and converted at a fixed rate of about €1.16, $1.34, ¥208, Swedish kr 12.9 and Danish kr 8.65 to the pound. They leave out deductions, social contributions, and state or local taxes, so they are a rough guide to the shape of each system, not what a person there pays. The figures come from the IRS (US), the tax adviser summaries of the 2026 French and German scales, Skat (Denmark), and the National Tax Agency (Japan, still to be checked). The Swedish figures are from tax adviser summaries, not Skatteverket.

Source: HMRC Personal Incomes Statistics, Table 3.3.