How to check a claim that taxes are going up

Updated 2026-10-13

Edited by Mistabilda, Editor

'Taxes are going up' can mean four different things: higher tax rates, frozen thresholds that pull more income into tax, more cash collected, or a higher tax burden as a share of the economy. Each has its own official source. The OBR's forecasts give the tax burden and explain what drives it, HMRC publishes cash receipts monthly, and the Budget's policy decisions table shows which tax changes were announced and what they raise.

Step 1: decide which meaning the claim has

Tax rates or thresholds. "Income tax is going up" may mean a rate rise, or that thresholds are frozen. Check current rates on GOV.UK; see income tax bands , National Insurance rates and the personal allowance .

Cash receipts. Total money collected by HMRC. This rises most years with prices and wages even when no tax changes.

The tax burden. Taxes as a percentage of GDP, the usual meaning of "the highest tax burden".

Tax paid by a household. What a particular family pays, which depends on its income and spending.

A claim can be accurate on one meaning and not on another, so pin it down first.

Step 2: check announced tax changes in the Budget

Every Budget lists each policy decision with what it raises or costs. In Budget 2025 , the bottom of the policy decisions table shows total tax policy decisions of +£26,645 million in 2030-31. The single largest item that year is the extension of the freeze on income tax and equivalent National Insurance thresholds to April 2031, costed at +£12,435 million in 2030-31. See how to read the Budget documents and fiscal drag .

A threshold freeze is a tax rise in the sense that it raises revenue compared with uprating thresholds, but no rate changes. Both descriptions can be found in official documents, so say which you mean.

Source: Budget 2025

Step 3: check the tax burden with the OBR

The OBR's Economic and fiscal outlook, March 2026 says:

"Total public sector receipts are forecast to rise as a share of the economy from 38.8 per cent of GDP in 2024-25 (£1.1 trillion) to an expected 42.7 per cent of GDP (£1.6 trillion) in 2030-31."

"National Accounts taxes as a share of GDP (the 'tax take') are forecast to increase from 34.5 per cent of GDP in 2024-25 to a peak of 38.5 per cent of GDP by the end of the forecast period. The 2030-31 peak would be a historic high".

Personal taxes (income tax and National Insurance) account for 2.4 percentage points of the forecast 3.9-point rise, and capital taxes for 0.9 points.

Notice the two measures: total receipts (which include non-tax income such as interest) and the narrower tax take. Claims about "the tax burden" should say which, and that the 2030-31 figure is a forecast. The OBR adds that "the average absolute five-year forecast difference for receipts as a share of GDP is 0.9 percentage points". See forecasts and projections .

Source: Economic and fiscal outlook, March 2026

Worked example: "the tax take is the highest since the war"

Measure: tax as a share of GDP, the OBR's National Accounts "tax take".

Source: the OBR's March 2026 EFO says the 2030-31 peak "would be a historic high", and elsewhere describes the tax-to-GDP ratio as forecast "to increase to a post-war high of 38.5 per cent of GDP in 2030-31".

Tense: the record is forecast for 2030-31, not already reached. A claim that it "is" the highest now needs outturn data, which comes from the ONS.

Cause: the OBR attributes much of the rise to personal taxes, "primarily due to earnings growth combined with the freeze to personal tax thresholds until April 2031".

Next update: the OBR publishes a new forecast on 28 October 2026 alongside the Budget, so check whether the figure has changed since.

Step 4: check cash receipts with HMRC

HMRC's monthly bulletin, HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK , released on 22 September 2026, says total receipts for April to August 2026 were £391.6 billion, "£24.9 billion higher than the same period last year".

The bulletin breaks the rise down: in cash terms, receipts were higher from "Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) (£16.6 billion), VAT (£3.8 billion) and business taxes (£3.0 billion)", and lower from environmental taxes and tobacco duties (£0.1 billion each).

Before using this as evidence of "higher taxes":

it is in cash terms, so part of any rise reflects inflation and earnings growth; see cash and real terms ;

HMRC says figures from April 2026 "are provisional and subject to revision";

HMRC changed how it aligns monthly receipts in the August 2026 release and warns that "direct year-on-year comparisons, including year-to-date comparisons, for published Income Tax, NICs and VAT receipts should be interpreted with caution".

For the annual totals see how much tax the UK collects .

Source: HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions for the UK

Step 5: comparisons with other countries

The OBR noted in March 2026 that "the level of the tax take in the UK is not unusually high compared to other advanced economies", while "UK marginal rates of tax may be above the OECD average". International comparisons should use the same definition for every country, usually OECD revenue statistics; see how UK taxes compare and how to check international comparisons .