Selected Year
Money In Trend
Total Money In Over Time
The toggles switch the revenue basis and measurement basis.
Timeline
Receipts and Spending by Year
Bars are clickable. Spending is available where PESA Table 5.4 has been processed.
Money In
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Money Spent
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Gap
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Money In
Tax Receipts
Money Out
Spending
Definitions
What These Terms Mean
Plain English
HMRC receipts: Money collected by HMRC, the UK tax office. This mostly means taxes like Income Tax, VAT, National Insurance, and Corporation Tax.
Total public receipts: All money coming into the wider public sector, not just HMRC taxes. This is the better headline comparison against total public spending.
Nominal £: The cash amount at the time, without adjusting for inflation.
Real £: The amount adjusted for inflation, so older years are easier to compare with today’s money.
Real £/person: The inflation-adjusted amount divided by the UK population, showing an approximate amount per person.
% GDP: The amount compared with the size of the UK economy. This helps show whether money in or spending is large relative to the country’s economy.
Spending: Public money going out, grouped into broad areas such as health, education, defence, and social protection.
Data Notes
HMRC categories: HMRC annual receipts are grouped into curated top-level categories to avoid obvious double counting.
Total public receipts source: Total public receipts use the OBR public finances databank public sector current receipts series.
Spending source: Spending uses HMT PESA Table 5.4 high-level public sector expenditure on services by function. General public services is shown excluding debt interest, with debt interest shown separately.
Forecasts: Future OBR estimates are kept in the data and marked as forecasts, but they are currently hidden from the main display.
Data Status