Special Report on the Sunday Times Rich List: The Missing Billions
A 2 per cent wealth tax on just the UK residents on the Sunday Times Rich List could have raised over £160 billion for the UK over the past 32 years.
A new study on the Sunday Times Rich List has revealed that the UK is missing out on billions of pounds every year without a wealth tax.
In collaboration with Patriotic Millionaires UK, Dr Ben Tippet, Lecturer in Economics and Wealth Inequality at King's College London, tracked every family on the Rich List from 1994 to 2025 to calculate how the wealth of the UK’s very richest people could have contributed more to the economy.
The report shows that at least £160 billion could have been raised for the UK’s public finances over the past three decades if UK tax residents on the annual rich lists had been asked to pay a two per cent wealth tax on their assets over £10 million - equivalent to the cost of building 80 new hospitals in that period.
“It’s time for those with the most money to cough up. This astounding report lays bare the failure of successive Governments to ensure the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share of tax.
£160 billion — that’s how much could’ve gone into fixing Britain. Safer streets, better schools, properly funded hospitals. Instead, we’ve got a country where millions struggle with the cost of living and underfunded public services and a far-right narrative fills the vacuum — blaming immigrants for problems caused by tax inequality. We tax work more than we tax wealth - it’s that simple.
“It’s illogical, immoral, ultimately unsustainable — and it’s a choice — a political one. Labour can show real leadership on this issue. A modest wealth tax on the richest people in the country — people who wouldn’t even notice it — could transform Britain.
“It’s not radical actually, it’s not an attack on rich people either, so many of us support the idea - it’s common sense. Tax justice. And long overdue.”
Patriotic Millionaires and other organisations advocate for a two per cent tax on those with over £10 million. The Rich List only represents the very smallest percentage of the super rich who need to be taxed more to mend the British economy.
Even with the two per cent tax deducted from the wealth of the very richest tax residents on the Rich List - roughly the top 0.001% - their share of total UK wealth would have nearly doubled to almost three per cent over the last three decades.
This year’s Rich List has a combined total wealth of £772 billion - more than 557% more in real terms than the list in 1994.
“The Rich List is an opportunity for people to question the extreme levels of wealth and inequality in our country. Our data presents a very clear picture that vast fortunes are being accumulated at the expense of everyone else - and by not properly taxing this wealth, the country is missing out on billions of pounds of investment.
Over the past three decades, the richest 250 families have seen their wealth grow on average by 9.1% per year in nominal terms - over double the rate of GDP growth (4.3%). Despite the headlines on billionaire wealth growth slowing down, the latest Rich List shows that the top 40 families in the UK now own more wealth than 50% of the population, meanwhile 14.3 million people, including 4.3 million children, are living in poverty in the UK.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
This report is the first dynamic analysis of a wealth tax on the UK wealth distribution. A detailed methodology is available in the report, which can be read here
160 billion / 80 = 2 billion. Hospitals listed in the New Hospital Programme: plan for implementation list the remaining construction projects in waves 1 and 2 to cost between £1 billion and £2 billion per hospital.
