Residents of London and the southeast of England pay more than a third of UK annual income tax, with Kensington & Chelsea, Elmbridge in Surrey and northeast Cheshire topping the list.
According to an analysis of HMRC's figures for 2021/2022, the total amount of income tax paid in the UK reached £222bn, paid by 32.7m people, with London paying almost £60bn, and residents of the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea alone paying £4.9bn.
The affluent London borough of Kensington and Chelsea has just 68,000 individuals paying income tax, accounting for 2.2% (£4.9bn) of the £222.1bn paid.
In comparison, the whole of the north east of England has 1.2m taxpayers and paid slightly more at £5.09bn (2.3%) than the highest paying borough in London.
London is home to 4.3m taxpayers, paying 27% of the total income tax paid, totalling £59.3bn.
The next highest tax paying areas are the south east (18.6%) at £41.4bn and the east of England (10.6%) at £23.5bn, which are home to 4.8m and 3.2m people respectively. In total, these regions paid a combined £64.9bn.
This was just over £5bn more than the whole of London, which is home to almost 4m more people.
The London boroughs paying the most after Kensington and Chelsea were Westminster (£4.5bn), Camden (£4.08bn) and Wandsworth (£3.99bn). All have a population higher than Kensington and Chelsea by a significant amount, with Wandsworth home to over 100,000 more people.
Buckinghamshire was the highest paying county outside of London, covering more of the tax take than the whole of Northern Ireland (£3.63bn. Additionally, the population of taxpayers in Buckinghamshire was 309,000.
Paying the least amount of tax as a region, but also with the least amount of taxpayers (810,000) was Northern Ireland, paying £3.4bn (1.4%).
Elmbridge, in Surrey, is the second highest area paying tax area outside of London, which is no surprise when the likes of St Georges Hills, Weybridge, Oxshott and Chobham fit within this council area, and is also home to Chelsea FC's training ground.
The Athletic recently dubbed this area 'the Beverly Hills of Britain' due to the number of premier league football players, celebrities as well as financial district workers living here due to the transport links into London. The council's taxpayers paid £2.1bn in income tax in total, with a population of just 76,000 taxpayers.
Similarly in the north, Cheshire East, which many Manchester United and Manchester City football players and staff call home, is the next highest paying council outside of London. In total the area paid £2.06bn in income tax. However, there were three times the number of taxpayers (221,000) than Elmbridge.
Manchester is 62nd on the list, paying £920m in income tax between 205,000 taxpayers.
As a whole, England covered 89% of the total tax take (£198.16bn) with the largest population of taxpayers (27.69m). Scotland paid £14.6bn, amounting to 6.6% of the total amount, while 1.48m taxpayers in Wales paid £5.97bn.
The City of Edinburgh ranked eighth in the top 20 highest tax paying locations, with residents contributing £32.4bn per year.
With Labour's Budget changes being announced on 30 October the income tax take will continue to increase because of the continued freeze on personal tax allowances that will pull more people into income tax at higher rates.
Peter Nichols – Tax Director
BFN Accounts & Tax Limited