Rich minority paying 60% of UK's income tax

The number of people liable for higher (40%) or top-rate (50%) tax is expected to jump from 3.25m in 2010-11 to 4.13m, or 13.8% of taxpayers, this year, based on HMRC figures analysed by The Sunday Times. Their share of the total tax bill will jump from 54.2% to 61.3%. Overall, taxpayer numbers are expected to decline by 1.4m to 29.9m this year as a result of the coalition's policy to raise the personal allowance for basic-rate payers. According to the figures, the top-earning 1% of the population - amounting to just 299,000 individuals earning more than £150k annually - will pay abou...