In the 2019-20 tax year, the government collected £9.9bn worth of capital gains tax, this is up 3% from the previous year, and for the second year in a row, the number of people paying the tax has dropped. This year the figure dropped 6% to 265,000.

The tax take for capital gains tax is forecast to rise even further over the next five years reaching £14.4bn in 2025-26, according to the government estimates.

The figures show that most capital gains tax came from a small number of taxpayers who made the largest gains. In the 2019-20 tax year, 41% of tax came from those who made gains of £5m or more, this group represents less than 1% of capital gains taxpayers each year.

In the 2019-20 tax year, broadly speaking, as income and size of gain increased, the number of individual taxpayers decreased.