The brothers behind the bookmaker Betfred have topped The Sunday Times Tax List for the first time, contributing more than £400 million to public finances over the past year.
Fred and Peter Done lead the rankings ahead of Harry Styles and Premier League footballers, as well as aristocrats and self-made entrepreneurs who have built fortunes from baby milk, teaching aids and stairlifts.
This year’s 100 individuals and families* were found to have contributed £5.758 billion to the public finances — 15.5 per cent more than those who appeared in the previous year. Fourteen of the entries were responsible for at least £100 million of tax each.
The increased sum for the chancellor is largely attributable to a rise in corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent imposed by the previous government. Few employers have published audited numbers laying bare the impact of Rachel Reeves’s decision to raise national insurance from last April.
The eighth edition of the Tax List coincides with an exodus of wealthy people from the UK to offshore destinations in Europe and the Middle East. Five of the figures in the 2025 league table are now resident in Jersey or Guernsey, four in Monaco and two in Portugal. There are others based in Cyprus, Dubai and the United States.
• Why Britain’s billionaires are fleeing to Jersey
The Dones, however, have said they will remain in Britain. “We owe this country,” Peter Done, 78, has said. “I feel there is an obligation for people that have made the money in that country to pay the tax in that country. Fred and myself are stopping here.”
Sons of an illegal bookie from Salford, the brothers began working with their father while still at school. They opened their first shop with winnings from a successful bet on England to win the 1966 World Cup.
Betfred accounted for the bulk of the Dones’ £400.1 million contribution — a sum equivalent to nearly £1.1 million a day. Their high street chain paid nearly £200 million of gambling duty in 2024-25. It also stumped up £14 million of business rates.
A separate company, Peninsula, which provides human resources and legal support to small firms, paid £36.6 million in corporation tax and employers’ national insurance.
This year’s Tax List also found:
● Each of the 100 entries paid at least £11 million over a 12-month period — £500,000 more than the threshold for entry in 2025.
● Forty-five of this year’s 100 were found to be paying more tax than last year, 30 paid less and two paid the same.
● Nearly a third (32) of the 100 entries are classed as being from London and the southeast.
● There are more top taxpayers in Yorkshire and the Humber than in Scotland.
● More than 10 per cent of all tax identified was attributable to the gambling industry.
● JK Rowling pays more than £130,000 a day to the exchequer.
● Manchester City’s Erling Haaland, 25, is the youngest person to appear in a Tax List. Brian Stannah, one of the siblings who runs stairlift manufacturer Stannah, is the oldest at 90.
● The highest taxpayer in London is the Russian-born maths whizz Alex Gerko, who is a British citizen.
● Mike Ashley, Sir James Dyson, Ed Sheeran, Anthony Joshua and Nik Storonsky also feature.
New entries include the singer Harry Styles, who is poised to release his fourth studio album in March. He earned more than £51.8 million from his touring and merchandise company Erskine Records in 2023-24, almost all of which is liable for tax at 45 per cent.
This year’s debutants also include largely unheralded entrepreneurs who have created jobs and wealth from a range of products and services.
Eleven years ago, the Irish-born Ross McMahon bought a Cumbrian infant milk powder factory from the global food manufacturer Heinz for £1. The Kendal-based facility is now the centrepiece of a business that paid £13.3 million of corporation tax and employers’ national insurance during 2023-24.
Jon and Susie Seaton, 43 and 44, ranked 83rd with an estimated contribution of £14.2 million. The Sheffield-based couple started their teaching aides outfit Twinkl from their kitchen table.
Other new entries include the 41-year-old Nik Storonsky, a co-founder of the payments firm Revolut; the baker turned Waitrose supplier Dave Wood; and the West Sussex-based Graeme and Yvonne Brooks, another husband-and-wife team who quietly built a successful venture supplying parts and services to airlines.
Sir John Timpson, the retailer, and his family appear at No 16. Their chain of more than 2,000 shops paid £11.6 million business rates and £9.4 million of corporation tax over the past year.
“We’ve been public about all the taxes we pay for a few years now,” said Timpson, 82. “I think it’s important that the contribution businesses make to the government’s finances is seen and recognised. The Tax List is a good idea.”
Sir Tim Martin, 70, appears at No 8 with a personal contribution put at £199.7 million. On average each of his 794 JD Wetherspoon pubs now delivers just over £1 million a year to the exchequer in VAT, alcohol duty and a range of other levies.
“I can’t complain about the level of taxation really — that’s a political issue,” Martin said. “Parties put forward their ideas and voters decide. What is unfair and economically counterproductive is the way pubs have to charge 20 per cent VAT on food while supermarkets don’t.
“We and the rest of the hospitality industry should have equality with the supermarkets. If we did, you’d have more pubs and restaurants … ultimately paying even more tax.”
Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at the consultancy Capital Economics, says that with public debt equivalent to 96 per cent of GDP and interest rate rises, the chancellor is walking a tightrope.
“The UK’s fraught position means significantly raising borrowing is not really an option, and that any further rises in government spending will probably need to be funded by higher taxes.
“That said, taxes as a share of GDP are already set to rise to an all-time high of just over 38 per cent by 2029-30 — 5 per cent above pre-pandemic levels.”
HMRC official data shows the UK’s highest-earning 1 per cent — those with pre-tax incomes of at least £219,000 — are stumping up more than a quarter (26.6 per cent) of all UK income tax during the current tax year.
This percentage has in fact fallen from 30.7 per cent in 2021-22, due largely to the freezing of income tax thresholds. The exodus of wealthy people to Dubai and other lower-tax jurisdictions may also be an explanation.
Fourteen of this year’s tax listers are now resident overseas, according to Companies House documents. Those who have recently left the UK but still qualify for the Tax List on the basis of tax paid from their companies include the sports promoter Eddie Hearn and the brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone, the owners of the stately home hotel Cliveden House.
Malcolm Healey, the Wren Kitchens founder, long considered Yorkshire’s richest man, now lives in the United States.
How the Tax List is calculatedThe Tax List rankings include corporation tax, dividend tax, capital gains tax, income tax and some payroll taxes as well as gambling and alcohol duties, according to the most recently filed company accounts up to January 10. These are calculated in proportion with ownership of the company in question. We exclude any personal taxation if someone is not listed as resident in the UK.Absence from the Tax List does not imply individuals are not paying their UK taxes. It simply means that the compilers have been unable to estimate how much they have paid.
Although the Tax List demonstrates that people no longer resident here can still contribute large sums to the exchequer, it also shows that individual departures can still hit the public purse.
For instance, John Jakes qualifies for the Tax List on the strength of £12.3 million of corporation tax and employers’ national insurance receipts from his company, Acorn Stairlifts. However, the Tax List’s compilers assume dividends of £44.8 million paid to Jakes in 2023-24 were not liable for UK tax because he is a long-term resident of Monaco.
If the 69-year-old entrepreneur was a UK resident the dividends would have yielded more than £17.6 million for the Treasury. Acorn Stairlifts has been approached for comment.
Mike Warburton, an accountant who was previously national head of tax services at Grant Thornton, said that last year’s abolition of centuries old non-dom rules had driven some large taxpayers from the UK.
He said: “Many left because they resent their estates being caught for 40 per cent inheritance tax on their global wealth. Such individuals will continue to pay tax on their UK assets including any UK businesses. What will inevitably happen, however, is that it will limit further UK investment as both they and other entrepreneurs decide to invest their money, talent and enterprise elsewhere.”
A Treasury spokesperson said: “The UK remains an attractive place to live, invest and run a business, with a highly progressive tax system. Our tax-to-GDP ratio and main capital gains tax rate are lower than any other European G7 member, and the headline rate of corporation tax is capped for the rest of this Parliament at 25% – the lowest in the G7.”