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The number of taxpayers paying the top rate of income tax to HMRC has risen beyond one million as frozen thresholds pull hundreds of thousands of middle earners into the 45% band.

720,000 people were dragged into the additional rate in 2024-25, taking the total to more than 1 million. The 45% top rate of tax was introduced by the Conservative Party in 2013 with a threshold of £150,000.

Then in April 2023, the Tories chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, lowered the threshold to £125,140 - and froze it there until 2028. If the threshold had risen with inflation, the 45% rate would only apply to earnings above £211,562.

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That would spare two-thirds of those now caught by it, according to analysis by Bowmore

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