Capital gains tax raised a record 24.2 billion pounds in the 2024/25 tax year, an 89 percent jump on the year before and the largest annual haul since 1987. The figures point to a tax that has moved from the margins of personal finance to something a far wider group of people now has to plan around.
The surge follows changes made by Rachel Reeves in the 2024 Budget, when she was chancellor. The main rates rose to between 18 and 32 percent, up from a previous range of 10 to 28 percent, while the tax-free annual allowance was cut from 6,000 pounds to 3,000 pounds. Relief on the sale of business assets was also made less generous from April 2025. Together, those measures meant more gains were taxed, and taxed at higher rates.
The number of people caught rose sharply. Some 584,000 paid the tax, a 45 percent increase on the previous year, and the total gains they reported reached 127 billion pounds, up 82 percent. The tax remains highly concentrated at the top: about 45 percent of the total came from the small group reporting gains above 5 million pounds, who make up under 1 percent of all payers, and 240 people reported individual gains of more than 1 million pounds.
Cryptocurrency accounted for a striking slice of the newcomers. Some 17,600 people reported crypto gains totalling 1.38 billion pounds, and they skewed young, with most aged between 25 and 44. That reflects how far digital assets have spread into ordinary portfolios, and how the tax rules have caught up with them.
“Capital gains tax has gone from being a tax relatively few people had to worry about to something more mainstream,” said Sarah Coles of the investment platform AJ Bell, summing up the shift the numbers describe.
For savers and business owners in Scotland, the same UK-wide rules apply, and the direction of travel is clear. A smaller allowance and higher rates mean that selling shares, a second property or a stake in a company is more likely to trigger a bill than it was a few years ago. Advisers say the practical response is straightforward: plan disposals carefully, make full use of the allowances that remain, and factor the tax in before selling rather than after. On the current trajectory, capital gains tax looks set to stay a mainstream concern rather than a niche one.
