National Statistics

Aggregates Levy Statistics Commentary 2020

Updated 10 June 2021

Released: 5 January 2021. Next Release: 30 June 2021.

1. About this release

This publication provides Official Statistics on Aggregates Levy (AGL) receipts and declarations.

The statistics in this release are based on recent and historic trader returns, up to November 2020.

Traders tend to account for Aggregates Levy in quarterly staggers; these staggers are uneven and historically payments have generally been highest in January, April, July and October each year, in order to align the accounting periods with the financial year.

The Aggregates Levy covers digging, dredging or importing aggregate commercially in the UK.

The current rate is £2 per tonne.

Traders become liable for the levy when an aggregate is:

• used for construction purposes
• mixed with anything other than water (excluding special circumstances)
• removed from:
  • its originating site.
  • a connected site which is registered under the same name as the originating site.
  • a site where it had been intended to apply an exempt process to it, but this process was not applied.

2. Receipts

Headlines

Total provisional AGL receipts for 2020 to 2021 financial year-to-date (April to November) are £232 million, which is £48.9 million (17.4%) lower than the same period in 2019 to 2020 financial year.

The latest provisional 6-month total (June to November) for total AGL receipts is £188 million, which is £18.8 million (9.1%) lower than the same period 12 months ago; and £28.8 million (18.0%) higher than the previous 6-month total (December to May).

Since 2012 to 2013 financial year, annual AGL receipts have broadly been increasing year on year. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were just beginning at the end of 2019 to 2020 and any impact from COVID-19 was not visible from that year’s receipts total.

Chart 1: AGL receipts have generally increased since the financial year ending 2010

Total receipts by financial year for the previous 10 complete financial years

Yearly AGL receipts have shown a broadly increasing trend over the previous 10 financial years, with small dips around the financial years ending 2013, 2014 and 2019.

3. Tonnage Declared

Total AGL tonnage declared is calculated by summing taxable and exempt tonnage declared (relieved tonnage is excluded from the calculation in order to avoid double counting as it’s contained within taxable tonnage). As taxable tonnage forms the majority of the total tonnage declared, the pattern of total tonnage is dominated by patterns in taxable tonnage.

Chart 2: Total AGL tonnage declared follows a strong quarterly pattern.

Quarterly total AGL tonnage declared, split by taxable tonnage, taxable tonnage of which relieved and exempt tonnage, from the financial year beginning 2013 to the second quarter of the year ending 2021.

All AGL tonnage declared (Taxable, Exempt and Relieved) follows a strong quarterly pattern. This is caused by reporting the tax declared for the whole accounting period (quarter) in the final month of the accounting period.

Total provisional AGL tonnage for 2020 to 2021 financial year-to-date (April to November) is 124,141 thousand, which is 8,766 thousand (6.6%) lower than the same period in in 2019 to 2020 financial year.

There was a large drop in Total provisional AGL tonnage declared for quarter 1 of 2020 to 2021 (April to June) of 54,564 thousand, which is 7,040 thousand (11.4%) lower than the same period in 2019 to 2020 potentially related to economic impacts caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Contacts

The AGL Bulletin is produced by the Indirect Tax Receipts Monitoring team as part of the ‘Excise duties, VAT, and other tax statistics’ collection.

For statistical enquiries, contact:

S Taylor revenuemonitoring@hmrc.gov.uk

For media enquiries, see HMRC press office.