The highest tax bills for decades is being seen across the board as frozen thresholds and rising costs put both individual and business taxpayers under increasing pressure. But surprisingly, HMRC is reaping less revenue from penalties, which fell to £830m in the 12 months, May 2024-April 2025, compared to the previous year’s total of £1.14bn.

The latest HMRC stats for tax revenue show that employer NICs brought in £12.66bn for the month, the highest figure ever, up from £10.52bn in March 2025. This was an additional £909m compared to a year earlier, putting the government on track to raise up to £24bn from the huge tax hike for businesses.

What was sliightly alarming was that HMRC said these figures ‘largely related to March liabilities’ by employers, so do not reflect the full impact of damaging April hike in PAYE NIC1 bill for businesses. It will be another month until the impact of that take hike is fully reflected in the monthly data.  

T