Income tax is not spread thinly. It is carried by a narrow band at the top, and the band has been getting narrower for twenty five years.
Drag the scale below through the taxpayer distribution. Every figure moves with it.
Multiple is share of tax divided by share of income. Above 1.0x the group pays more than its income would imply. Figures for 2024-25, taxpayers only.
Total managed expenditure in 2025-26. Around £48,000 per household, or 44.8% of national income. Welfare is the second largest block, and it is bigger than capital investment and debt interest combined.
Within day to day departmental spending the largest single items are health at £204bn, education at £95bn and defence at £39bn. Row 03 is the residual and includes items such as public service pensions and accounting adjustments.
Around 55% of social security spending goes to pensioners. The single largest line in the entire welfare budget is the State Pension, at £146.1bn. Welfare is not mostly unemployment support. It is mostly old age.
£146.1bn in 2025-26. Nearly half of all welfare spending, and more than the entire schools budget.
£77.1bn. This cuts across both halves of the bar rather than sitting inside one, so it is shown separately.
UK social security is forecast at £333.7bn in 2025-26, 10.6% of GDP and 23.6% of everything the government spends.
Welfare was £314.9bn in 2024-25 and is forecast to reach £408.6bn by 2030-31, rising to 11.2% of GDP.
Counting cash benefits and benefits in kind such as the NHS and state education, against direct and indirect taxes. The majority position is not a moral verdict. It is mostly a function of age.
Source: ONS, Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income, financial year ending 2024. State Pension and Pension Credit are classified as cash benefits.
The bottom 50% means the bottom half of taxpayers, not of adults. Around 35.6% of the adult population paid no income tax at all in 2023-24, so the real base is narrower than the chart suggests.
The bottom decile pays roughly 8% of net income in council tax. The top deciles pay 2% to 3%. VAT looks regressive against income but sits at 13% to 16% of spending across the whole distribution.
Before taxes and benefits the richest fifth had 12.2 times the income of the poorest fifth. After them, 3.3 times. The Gini falls from 47.6% to 26.8%.
The tax shares are 2024-25 outturn. The spending figures are 2025-26 forecasts. They describe the same system but not the same twelve months.
These are UK wide figures on rest of UK rates. Scottish income tax has six bands and a higher top rate, so an Edinburgh taxpayer above roughly £30,300 pays more than the rate shown.
Spending of £1,368bn is not funded by tax alone. The gap is borrowing, which is why debt interest is now a larger line than defence.