• Businessman and sportswear owner Stephen Rubin and family tops the inaugural Sunday Times Tax List
• Other well-known names on the list include David & Victoria Beckham, Sir James Dyson, Denise Coates, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, and Mike Ashley
• Between them the top 50 wealthy individuals or families were liable for around £2bn of tax last year, with £12.1m the minimum tax bill required to make the top 50

The 50 wealthy individuals or families at the top of the first Sunday Times Tax List  were liable for nearly £2bn of UK tax last year.

The Sunday Times survey - the first of its kind - examined the taxes due on business profits, share sales, dividend income, and, where known, personal income through their salaries.  

Twenty-eight of the 145 billionaires in last year’s Sunday Times Rich List make the top 50 of the Tax List, with a further 18 millionaires also making the cut. Four of the Tax Listers did not appear in the Rich List but are still making a big enough contribution to the Exchequer to be among the taxman’s best friends.

Stephen Rubin tops the list and he owns a majority stake in the high-street chain JD Sports, as well as sports and fashion brands such as Mitre, Speedo, Berghaus and SeaVees through his London-based Pentland Group. In total he had tax liabilities of £181.6m in 2018, £121.5m of it stemming from his JD Sports holding, £53.2m from his Pentland’s corporate tax bill, plus another £6.86m tax bill on the £18m of dividends he and his family received from the business during the year.

A notable inclusion in 49th place are David & Victoria Beckham. David Beckham was reportedly overlooked for a knighthood because of an investment in a film scheme considered tax avoidance by HRMC. It is calculated the Beckhams paid a total of £12.7m of tax, due from their dividends and other levies in the accounts of their two principal companies. Those behind the film scheme Becks invested in – run by Ingenious Media – still maintain it was lawful.

Robert Watts, who compiles the Tax List and The Sunday Times Rich List, said:

"It's hard to deny that the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers and other high-profile scandals have given the impression that none of Britain's wealthy elite contribute a penny to our public finances. 

"But our inaugural Sunday Times Tax List shows which of the super-rich are contributing many of millions of pounds a year. These are large sums of money - the size that do not merely pay for a nurse, but pay to build the hospital in which they work. 

"These figures arguably make the case for the wealthy more effectively than many charitable foundations or other philanthropy these people do. 

"The Tax List also raises the question of how our country fills the gap if Brexit - or a more hostile political environment - encourages the super-rich to quit the UK for Monaco, Switzerland or other low-tax bolt holes."  

Commenting on David Beckham's inclusion, Watts added: "There has long been the suspicion that the former England captain's involvement in investment schemes under attack by the taxman blew the whistle on Beckham's knighthood. Disclosure of how much tax they do pay may perhaps raise the prospect of us one day seeing Sir Golden Balls and Lady Posh."

You can read the full article here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-sunday-times-tax-list-2019-britains-top-taxpayers-revealed-2kvjg25bk

THE FULL LIST OF BRITAIN’S TOP 50 TAXPAYERS

Notes to editors

The Tax List takes account of the following forms of UK taxation, calculated from publicly available documents detailing business taxes paid and tax assessments made by us based on known salaries or dividends:

Corporation Tax — paid at a rate of 19% on all company profits. The amount ascribed to individuals is in proportion to their stake in the business concerned.

Dividend Tax — paid at a rate of 38.1 % for additional rate taxpayers (those earning more than £150,000 a year) on overall value of dividends received.

Capital Gains Tax — paid at 10% on sales of businesses or parts of businesses for those qualifying for Entrepreneurs’ Relief.

Income Tax — paid at 45% on earnings above £150,000 (additional rate). Only those with discernible tax liabilities in excess of £12.1m in 2017-18 via the taxes above are included in the Tax List.

We do not include taxes paid overseas. This accounts for the absence of many people who appear in The Sunday Times Rich List. For example, JCB Service, the main company associated with Lord Bamford, paid £43.2m of taxes overseas but only £5.6m in the UK, insufficient to make our Tax List top 50.

We have only limited access when it comes to personal taxation. In the UK, there is no publication of annual tax returns.

We only include assessments of income tax paid where salaries and fees are disclosed through company accounts — or otherwise made known. So, Denise Coates’s salary of £220m was disclosed in the latest Bet365 corporate accounts as the highest-paid director.

Where we believe people not to be resident in the UK and therefore not liable for UK personal taxation, we have not counted any tax that might be due on income or dividends.

The figures quoted are likely to be conservative estimates of total tax paid. The amount paid may be much higher and relates predominantly to the tax year 2017-18, or in some cases (such as share sales) to the calendar year 2018. Every effort has been made to reduce the risk of double-counting of tax, where business interests reside across several overlapping firms.

Some individuals who have made public pronouncements on their tax payments do not appear if the tax referred to was not paid within the window we are considering. For example, the mobile telecoms billionaire John Caudwell, who said in 2013 that he had paid £253m tax since 2008, does not make the Tax List, based on accounts we can see for 2017-18.

As we have no access to personal accounts, we take no account of legitimate measures taken to reduce tax bills.

Absence from the Tax List does not imply individuals are not paying their UK taxes, simply that we have been unable to estimate how much they have paid.