HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has raked in £6.9billion from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) in the last year – representative of the second largest rise in CGT takings in the past two years, according to data.
CGT accounted for 1.4 per cent of all taxes in the 2014/15 financial year, comparable with 1.1 per cent in 2013/14. The £6.9bn total recorded for 2015/16 reflects a 24.6 per cent rise over the £5bn recorded in 2013/14. In 2012/13, the Treasury collected just £3.5bn.
Furthermore, approximately 28,000 more taxpayers were hit by CGT in 2014/15 (242,000) compared with 2013/14 (214,000).
Evidently, rising property values and larger volumes of sales over the past year have led to significant increases in the total amount of CGT paid.
Experts have suggested that rising asset values are dragging an increasing number of buy-to-let investors into the CGT net ever since a higher tax rate of 28 per cent was introduced by former Chancellor George Osborne in June 2010.
However, from the 2016/17 financial year, the 18 per cent rate for basic rate taxpayers and 28 per cent rate for additional or higher rate taxpayers have been reduced to 10 and 20 per cent, respectively. This will apply to all capital gains outside of residential property.