Computation and Concentration of UK Corporation Tax

Ireland’s Corporation Tax statistics get a fair bit of attention.  Similar statistics are produced for the UK by HRMC.  First up the aggregate Corporation Tax computation.

The common origins of the two systems mean that many of the descriptions are similar and it follows a form similar to the Irish version (the most recent update of which can be seen here).

For the UK we can see that the starting point of Gross Trading Profits and after subtracting capital allowances and other deductions and adding Other Income & Gains we get to Total Chargeable Profits.  The applicable rates are set against this to give the Total Tax Charge and after allowing for reliefs and set-offs we get to the bottom line: Corporation Tax Payable.

The sequence of numbers shown above don’t necessary add to the outcomes shown as in some cases (such as capital allowances) the amounts are those available in the year rather than those actually offset against profits in the year as losses brought forward are not included in Net Trading Profits.

The majority of Chargeable Profits are taxed at the Main Rate.  This has been reduced over the past decade (it was 30 per cent in 2008) and for the period shown in the table above there were reductions every year as it fell from 26 per cent to 20 per cent.  This has the effect of reducing the “tax payable as a % of chargeable profits” figure in the final row. 

This figure is fairly close to the Main Rate for all years and it can be seen that the largest item reducing the Total Tax Charge is Double Tax Relief which relates to non-UK tax already paid on non-UK profits included in the Chargeable Profits of companies.  This is also a key reason why this measure of below the 12.5 per cent headline rate for Ireland though it has been joined by the R&D tax in recent years as explored here. 

A second issue of relevance to Ireland is the concentration of payments.  Statisticians from the Revenue Commissioners have done excellent work on this recently and we now know that 10 companies account for around 40 per cent of Irish Corporation Tax payments.  For the UK the key points on concentration made in the HMRC report are:

Key points:

1. The distribution of companies’ tax liabilities is highly skewed. In 2015- 16 about 7,000 companies (under 1 per cent) had liabilities of £500,000 or more, between them contributing around 54 per cent of total Corporation Tax payable.

2. Companies with liabilities of less than £10,000 comprised about 65 per cent of the total number of companies liable for corporation tax in 2015- 16, but owed only around 7 per cent of the total Corporation Tax payable.

3. In 2015-16, around 50 companies had more than £50 million each in Corporation Tax liabilities (totalling £5.4 billion or 12 per cent of the total Corporation Tax payable). The figures for 2014-15 were around 60 companies paying £6.9 billion or 16 per cent of the total Corporation Tax payable.

4. There was an increase of around 140 thousand in the number of companies with any liability between 2014-15 and 2015-16. This increase was largely concentrated in companies with a Corporation Tax liability of under £50,000.

So the receipts are concentrated but not anything near to the same extent as they are in Ireland.

Finally, the HMRC report has lots of detail on the use of capital allowances – but there is no mention or breakdown provided for capital allowances for capital expenditure on intangible assets. Pity.