Rishi Sunak’s ‘stealth tax’ creates 2 million new higher-rate payers in just three years

Freeze in allowances means higher income tax rates no longer ‘reserved for very wealthiest’

Nearly 2 million more people are paying higher-rate income tax because Rishi Sunak has scrapped normal increases in allowances, new figures reveal.

The numbers paying the higher 40 per cent rate or the additional 45 per cent rate has soared since Boris Johnson came to power in 2019 because of the “stealth tax”, the figures show.

A four-year freeze in the thresholds – which the chancellor is under pressure to rethink, because of soaring inflation – will create more than 3 million higher-rate taxpayers by the next election, the consultancy LCP is estimating.