Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of (a) the total wealth of and (b) the tax gap for taxpayers who have an income greater than £200,000 or assets greater than £2,000,000 since 2010; and what assessment he has made of recent trends in levels of tax avoidance.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes statistics on identified personal wealth in the UK in its Distribution of personal wealth statistics. The Distribution of personal wealth statistics are available at: Distribution of personal wealth statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Latest estimates of personal wealth are only available according to the value of the estate and averaged over the period 2014 to 2016.

Details of the individuals wealthy population are available at: Tax by different customer groups – 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

HMRC estimates the size of the tax gap, which is the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to HMRC, and what is actually paid. The tax gap statistics are published annually and are available at: Measuring tax gaps - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The latest estimate of the wealthy customer group tax gap was £1.5 billion for the tax year 2020-21. Historical figures for the tax gap for wealthy customers can be found in table 1.4 of the online tables Measuring tax gaps tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).