Business

Ed Sheeran And JK Rowling Among Highest Tax Payers In UK

BY Nii Ogbamey Tetteh January 30, 2024 10:12 PM EDT
Ed Sheeran and J.K. Rowling
Source: Instagram.com/@jkrowling_official @teddysphotos

English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran and British author and philanthropist J.K. Rowling have made it onto an estimated list of the highest UK taxpayers.

The Sunday Times selected the top 100 contributors, who were estimated to have added £5.35 billion to public budgets last year.

The newspaper estimated the tax paid on corporate earnings, stock sales, dividends, home purchases, and personal income.

According to the report, two-thirds of those on the list paid less in taxes in 2023 than the previous year.

Mr Ecclestone is a newcomer after paying £650 million in taxes and fines to HMRC to escape incarceration. When tax officials wanted the 93-year-old to report more than £400 million held in a trust in Singapore in 2015, he refused.

As the greatest taxpayer, Mr Gerko, who was rated 15th on last year’s Sunday Times Rich List, paid an estimated £664.5 million for the fiscal year 2023, or more than £1.8 million each day.

In 2016, the Russian-born professional trader who created the algorithmic trading business XTX Markets renounced his Russian nationality and obtained British citizenship.

“In the world of algorithmic trading, this guy’s a rock star,” Robert Watts, the list’s creator, said.

According to the newspaper’s estimates, Akshata Murty, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wife, paid around £4.8 million in taxes but fell short of the £10 million level required to make the list.

Ms Murty, the daughter of an Indian IT millionaire, agreed to pay UK taxes on all of her profits in 2022 after it was discovered that she had “non-dom” status, which meant she did not pay UK tax on her foreign income.