The top 10 taxpayers in UK includes billionaire Brexiteer Dyson and Britain's best paid boss
The people who pay the most amount of tax in the UK span across finance, gambling, and manufacturing industries.
Newspaper, The Sunday Times, just released its first annual The Sunday Times Tax List for the year, where it crunches and collates all the data of Britain’s 50 most wealthy individuals or families and their tax bills. In total, they are all liable for around £2bn ($2.6bn) of UK tax in the last year.
The top 10 biggest taxpayers made for interesting reading and included Denise Coates, who came under fire for getting a £48m payrise, and billionaire James Dyson, who was one of the most vocal supporters for Brexit but has recently declared that his company Dyson will be moving its headquarters from the UK to Singapore.
10. Baroness Howard de Walden and family
Like with most of Britain’s aristocrats and the royals, the family’s wealth centres around property and land that continually get handed down their bloodline for generations. For example, the Howard de Waldens’ 92 acres of prime real estate in Marylebone, central London, have been in the family since 1879.
They are worth £4bn and paid £44.1m for the 2017-2018 tax year.
9. James Benamor
He may be ‘just’ the 337th richest person in Britain — with £380m in personal wealth — but he is the UK’s 9th highest taxpayer by stumping up £52.2m over the last tax year.
He started his Richmond Group aged 21. Now 20 years later, its main operation Amigo Loans, a lender which offers credit to people turned down by high-street lenders if they provide a guarantor, made profits of £66.4m.
8. Sir Peter Wood
The insurance tycoon paid £52.7m in the last tax year and has a personal worth of £781m.
The 71-year-old is claimed to be owner of the world’s largest collection of Margaret Thatcher’s clothing, mostly from a 2015 Christie’s auction. His money comes from him creating seven insurance businesses, including Direct Line and Esure.
7. Sir Chris Hohn
Hohn is worth £1bn, thanks to hedge fund management career. In 2014, he was knighted for services to philanthropy and international development.
He paid £64.8m in taxes last year.
6. The Weston family
The family paid £76m in tax but have a personal wealth of £10bn.
They have a food and retailing empire that owns brands such as Ryvita, Twinings, Primark, and Selfridges. The operations also span across Americas, Europe, Australia, China and southern Africa.
5. Jim Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe is the richest man in Britain — he’s worth £21bn — but he only makes 5th in the list for the UK’s biggest taxpayers. He paid £110.5m in tax for the last year.
Ratcliffe’s Ineos is the biggest privately owned company in the UK and sellsmore than 60m tons of chemicals each year. Those chemicals are used in the packaging, food, construction, textile, white goods and car manufacturing industries. The company employes more than 18,500 people.
4. Bruno Schroder and family
The 85-year-old billionaire has spent more than half a century on the board of his family business and has made a bulk of his £5.2bn fortune through fund management. His family has a number of other investments, including a 18,500-acre Dunlossit estate on the island of Islay, where they breed Middle White pigs. He’s the 24th richest person in Britain but is one of the UK’s top taxpayers with £114.3m for the year.
3. Sir James Dyson and family
Dyson and his family paid £127.8m in tax but their personal wealth is £9.5bn.
Dyson is one of the world’s most prominent living inventors and his vacuum and hairdryer group — Dyson — is enormous. He also was one of Britain’s most prominent business people to support the UK leaving the European Union. He said that Brexit would enable Britain to benefit from setting its own trade policy. He even said that it’s worth UK politicians walking away from talks in a no-deal Brexit because “they’ll come to us.”
However, earlier this week the company Dyson said it will be moving its headquarters from Britain to Singapore.
READ MORE: Brexit-supporter James Dyson to move Dyson HQ to Singapore
2. Denise, John, and Peter Coates
Denise Coates, the billionaire founder of the online company Bet365, came under fire for getting a £48m pay rise back in November 2018. Her salary rose to £265m including dividends, making her one of the world’s highest-paid business leaders, in the same period. The family’s collective wealth is currently at £5.754bn.
But it looks like she and her family will be having to give a slice of that to the tax man — Her and her family’s tax bill was at £156m.
READ MORE: UK’s best-paid boss gets a £48m payrise
1. Stephen Rubin and family
Rubin is the co-owner of Pentland Group, the holding company for a number of sporting goods companies, including Speedo and Ellesse. The sportswear tycoon and his family paid a tax bill of £181.6m for 2017-2018. However, it will feel like a drop in the ocean considering their personal wealth is collectively £2.82bn for 2018.
