But the amount of tax recovered from the wealthy for mistakes, non-compliance and offshore accounts by HMRC was £5.2bn in 2023-24, up from £2.2bn in 2019-20, while it cost HMRC £350m to monitor their tax compliance as they are managed differently to average taxpayers. The cost to HMRC was up from £190m five years ago.

A major report by the National Audit Office (NAO) report showed that tax recovery from ‘wealthy individuals’ more than doubled from pre pandemic levels, as a result of growing personal wealth and more compliance work by HMRC, as well as more proactive interventions, but indicated a significant tax gap still exists.

There are an estimated 850,000 wealthy individuals in the UK, accounting for 2% of the population, and they paid a combined £119bn in personal taxes, equivalent to an average personal tax bill of £140,000.