HMRC receipts for 2013 were up by £19.5 billion due to Income Tax, National Insurance, VAT and Stamp Duty Land Tax, data released by chartered accountants Blick Rothenberg LLP have revealed.

The figures were published in the latest tax statistics issued today by HMRC.

Nimesh Shah, Senior Manager at Blick Rothenberg, said:

“The standout statistic for 2013 is that total HMRC receipts are £19.5 billion higher than in 2012. This is a staggering increase on the previous year. Income tax and National Insurance, VAT and Stamp Duty Land Tax are the major contributors, and this points towards a recovering economy.”

He added: “There are more people in jobs, as we know from the latest employment figures, and so there are more people spending more, resulting in higher VAT receipts. Coupled with the fact that there were over one million property transactions in 2013, all these factors are strong indicators of a hopefully resurgent economy in 2014.”

Shah said that compared to 2012 the total income tax receipts were £7 billion higher. PAYE receipts were £1.5 billion higher despite that for nine months of the year, the top rate of tax that applied was 45%, compared to 50% for all of 2012.

The number of residential property transactions in 2013 was over one million and averaged 100,000 transactions per month in the last six months of the year.

Shah commented:

“The impact of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme is clear in the figures for the last six months. It will be interesting to see the number of transactions in this year’s first quarter as we expect there to be a hurry of transactions in advance of April 5th, when the final period of ownership for principal private residence relief is being cut from 36 to 18 months.”