The UK took more money in NIC receipts this year – some highlights from a recent HMRC National Insurance report.
“Receipts” just means the cash the government actually collected in that tax year. “As a proportion of GDP” means “as a share of the UK’s total output”, so it shows how heavy these taxes were compared to the size of the economy.
From 2005 to 2006 to 2024 to 2025, the total collected went from £223.5bn to £489.0bn. That rise is what you’d expect when wages and prices go up over time, more people work, and more income gets pulled into tax, especially when thresholds do not rise much.
The share of GDP went from 15.8% to 17.0%. So it’s not just “the economy got bigger”, it’s also that these taxes took a bigger slice of the economy than they used to.
The dip in 2019 to 2020 (15.4%) is being linked to “structural changes” like big rises in the personal allowance. That means more people paid less Income Tax, or paid it later, so receipts grew slower than the economy for that period.
The fall in 2009 to 2010 was the financial crash period. When the economy slows, people earn less, profits drop, fewer assets get sold at a gain, and tax takes fall with it.
In 2020 to 2021, receipts still went up a bit, but not by much compared with earlier years, because COVID hit activity. On top of that, some payments got delayed or were not paid on time, so the cash arriving to the Treasury looked weaker than normal.
In 2021 to 2022, receipts jumped because the economy reopened and pay was stronger, plus more self-assessed income and asset sales fed through from the year before. It also includes some of the tax that was delayed in 2020 to 2021 finally getting paid.
In 2022 to 2023, receipts rose again and they say part of that could be from a National Insurance rate rise that applied for part of the year. Even if later changes reversed some of it, a chunk of that year still had higher rates, so receipts got a boost.
In 2023 to 2024, receipts still rose even though NIC rates were cut and the employee threshold was lifted. That sounds odd until you remember pay was rising and Income Tax thresholds and bands were being held down, so more people got dragged into paying more tax without a headline rate rise.
In 2024 to 2025, receipts rose again despite another employee NIC cut, for the same basic reasons: pay growth, and frozen Income Tax thresholds pushing more income into tax over time.
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