Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) commentary (December 2021)
Updated 28 January 2022
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/insurance-premium-tax-ipt-bulletin/insurance-premium-tax-ipt-commentary-december-2020
Headlines
The latest headlines for Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) statistics are:
- total IPT receipts for the last complete financial year, 2020 to 2021, were £6,307 million, which is £107 million (1.7%) lower than the previous financial year
- standard rate IPT liabilities for the last complete financial year, 2020 to 2021, were £6,320 million, which is £41 million (0.6%) lower than the previous financial year
- higher rate IPT liabilities for the last complete financial year, 2020 to 2021, were £255 million, which is £118 million (31.6%) lower than the previous financial year
- total provisional IPT receipts for the 2021 to 2022 financial year-to-date (April to December) are £5,039 million, which is £277 million (5.8%) higher than the same period in the previous financial year
About this release
This publication provides Official Statistics on IPT receipts and declarations.
The statistics in this release are based on recent and historic trader returns, up to December 2021.
IPT is a tax on general insurance premiums. There are 2 rates:
- a standard rate charged on most insurance premiums
- a higher rate for travel insurance, mechanical or electrical appliances insurance and some vehicle insurance
Receipts
Figure 1: Total IPT receipts for the previous 10 financial years, in £ million
For the full dataset that accompanies Figure 1 go to Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) tables (December 2021)
Figure 1 illustrates the following trends:
- over the last 10 years IPT receipts have followed a generally increasing trend but were fairly stable between the financial year 2011 to 2012 and the financial year 2014 to 2015
- total yearly IPT receipts have been generally increasing since the financial year 2014 to 2015, this is partly due to the most recent duty rate increases of standard rate IPT in 2015, 2016, and 2017
Returns analysis
IPT taxpayers mainly follow quarterly accounting periods. Tax returns are due by the end of the month following the accounting period. Payment of tax is also generally due to HMRC by the same time, but taxpayers who pay by direct debit are given a 7 day extension.
These accounting periods and payment patterns cause a 1 to 2 month lag between accounting periods ending and receipts being received by HMRC. Therefore the latest month for liabilities data from returns is 1 month behind the latest month for receipts data.
Figure 2: Total standard and higher rate liabilities declared by financial quarter for the previous 6 financial years, in £ million
For the full dataset that accompanies Figure 2 go to Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) tables (December 2021)
Figure 2 illustrates the following trends:
- standard rate liabilities make up a large majority of total liabilities quarterly
- standard rate declarations have followed a rising trend since the financial year 2015 to 2016, partly as recent rate rises have been concentrated within this rate
- higher rate has followed a similar trend but declarations have decreased in recent quarters
- since the financial year beginning 2018 liabilities have been fairly stable quarterly
Contacts
The IPT 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:
For media enquiries, see HMRC press office.