Britain’s top 100,000 taxpayers saw their average income and capital gains tax bills surge by 18% in one year, according to a Freedom of Information request.

The average amount of tax paid by the 100,000 top taxpayers rose to £559,000 in 2020/21, up £84,000 from the the £475,000 paid the previous year.

Britain’s 100,000 top taxpayers also paid almost a quarter (24.1%) of HMRC’s annual revenue from income and capital gains tax, despite accounting for just 0.3% of UK taxpayers.

Overall the top 100,000 taxpayers have seen their tax bills soar by 45% in five years.

The number of people paying income tax and Capital Gains Tax has also risen sharply, up by 2m from 31.3m in 2017/18 to 33.3m in 2021/22.

The figures were revealed in a Freedom of Information Request made in November by Wealth Club, a provider of tax efficient investments to wealthy investors.

The FoI also uncovered that the top 100 taxpayers in the UK collectively paid £4.6 billion of income and capital gains tax in 2021/22, the equivalent of £46m each and a 14% increase from the £3.9 billion paid the year before.

Income and capital gains tax is now paid by 33.3m people in the UK, according to Wealth Club, and HMRC received £232.7bn in revenue from income and capital gains taxes.

Alex Davies, founder of Wealth Club, said: “It is commonly claimed that wealthy individuals do not pay their fair share of tax. These figures prove what a myth that is.

“In fact, 100,000 people paid £55 billion in tax, a staggering 24% of all income and capital gains receipts, despite making up just 0.3% of taxpayers.

“Moreover, the overall income and capital gains tax take they are paying has risen by 45% in just five years, meaning not only are they paying more, but they are shouldering more of the increasingly heavy burden.”

He added that the top 100 people in the UK paid on average over £46 million each in tax, contributing 2% of the UK’s total income and capital gains tax receipts, despite accounting for just 0.0003% of the income and capital gains tax paying population.

Mr Davies said the UK government should “tread very carefully” as the wealth were “a mobile bunch” and could easily move elsewhere.

He said latest figures suggested that an estimated 3,200 millionaires are expected to leave the UK this year. He said if the top 1,000 taxpayers up sticks and move to sunnier tax climates, the government would lose £11.5 billion in tax receipts.

• Table shows a breakdown from HMRC of the amount of tax paid by the top 100 to top 100,000 taxpayers between 2017 and 2022.

The graph shows the proportion of income and capital gains tax paid by the top 100,000 tax payers between 2017 and 2022.