{"id":37077,"date":"2017-05-02T07:58:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T06:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=37077"},"modified":"2017-05-02T07:58:04","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T06:58:04","slug":"19-of-all-people-at-work-in-the-uk-dont-make-enough-to-pay-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2017\/05\/02\/19-of-all-people-at-work-in-the-uk-dont-make-enough-to-pay-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"19% of all people at work in the UK don’t make enough to pay tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been looking at data on employment and taxation in the UK. Because HMRC publish tax data very late I have been forced to look at the tax year 2014\/15<\/a> and have used employment data published by the Office for National Statistics for March 2015 for comparison.<\/p>\n

The following is data from these sources for March 2015 split by age bands on economically active and inactive people (the number for 0-15 is current, but does not impact the analysis that follows). The bands are those used for official statistics and reflect a past era of employment and pensions, but are all that is available:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following tax data is from HMRC for 2014\/15 when combined with ONS labour force data<\/a>\u00a0for March 2015:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This immediately gives rise to some quite surprising conclusions, even allowing for the obvious margins for error that must exist in any such data and its extrapolation.<\/p>\n

The first is that 19.3% of all people who are at work in the UK don\u2019t pay tax.<\/p>\n

That can be analysed in a little more depth. The ONS said there are 4.5 million self-employed people in March 2015: the data therefore suggests 1.2 million of them did not pay tax. This means that 26.7% of the self-employed did not pay tax in 2014\/15 whilst 17.2% of employees did not.<\/p>\n

Some, of course some will say this is a good thing. I beg to differ. As the statistics make clear, in a great many ways these people don\u2019t count. They disappear from view. Working these numbers out takes some effort.<\/p>\n

More importantly, saying this is good news ignores the simple fact that this means that many of the people in question are almost certainly living in conditions of considerable hardship.<\/p>\n

And this is what is really significant about this data: near enough one in six UK employees and more than one in four of the UK\u2019s self-employed people do not pay tax because they don\u2019t earn a figure that is itself only, near enough, just 75% of the UK minimum wage.<\/p>\n

If you want to know what is wrong with the UK economy this is the answer. We have a government that is apparently happy with large numbers of people living on far too little.<\/p>\n

This country needs a pay rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been looking at data on employment and taxation in the UK. Because HMRC publish tax data very late I have been forced to
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