The latest annual corporation tax figures were up 4% to £100.4bn for 2025-26, but this increased a meagre £3.5bn on the previous year’s £96.9bn. The latest HMRC figures are a stark reminder that hiking the tax rate to 25% for businesses in April 2023 did not necessarily generate much more in tax after the initial hike, nor in the long term. Looking back over the last decade, CT receipts were £49.08bn in 2016-17.

While businesses with profits of less than £50,000 pay a lower rate of 19%, and only contributed £2.92bn to the total pot, the full rate of 25% is not filling Treasury coffers as much as it did initially as economic growth stalls hitting tax receipts.

But there is a general shift towards a much higher corporate tax burden for business, in the last two years, the total paid has increased from £84.5bn before the hike to 25% to £100.4bn. Pre pandemic, businesses paid £59.9bn in 2019-20 while a decade ago it was only £42.4bn.

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