Tax receipts for July 2023 were £80.7bn, the highest receipts on record for a month of July and the fourth highest month on record exceeded only by January 2023, 2022, and 2021, according to HMRC statistics.

Noting that January and July are the biggest months for HMRC’s income tax receipts because these reflect the bi-annual due dates for self-assessment tax payments, Jo Neal, a manager at Blick Rothenberg, said: ‘Of the £80.7bn takings £30.2bn related to income tax. In comparison, the July 2022 income tax takings were £25.4bn reflecting a 19% increase over the past 12 months. With average pay increasing by 7.8% over the past year this shows that more taxpayers are being pushed into higher tax rates and losing a larger proportion of their salaries to tax. With the tax bands being frozen until April 2028 we expect to see this continuing, and an increasing tax burden being put on the UK taxpayer.’