Capital gains tax bills surge as HMRC threshold freeze bites – London Wallet

Capital gains tax receipts jumped early in 2026, with HM Revenue & Customs reporting £19.7bn collected in January and February – up 73% from £11.4bn a year earlier.

The rise has drawn attention from wealth managers, who point to frozen thresholds pulling more gains into tax.

The figures relate to self-assessment payments for 2024/25, before CGT rate increases announced in the October 2024 Budget.

Jason Hollands, managing director at wealth management firm Evelyn Partners, commented: “The CGT take continues to grow compared to last year, with the two-month total of £19.7bn, some 73% higher than the same period of 2025.

“The January and February receipts include the payment of self-assessment bills for the 2024/25 tax year so it could reflect investors, from April 2024, disposing of assets ahead of an expected rise in CGT rates that duly arrived at the October 2024 Budget.

“Before that Budget, many asset-owners thought CGT rates were going up more than they did, with some Labour MPs arguing for an equalisation with income tax rates, so it seems likely much of this spike in CGT revenues is due to pre-emptive disposals.

“As the annual exemption had been slashed by the previous government to a meagre £3,000 by April 2024 there was – and remains – little protection against CGT for investors selling assets, which will have turbo-charged the revenues from any pre-Budget disposals. We will only know next year if this was a one-off boost or whether investors continued afterwards to sell assets at the higher CGT rates, which took effect immediately at the Budget.

“With taxes on capital gains, investors tend either to bring forward decisions ahead of anticipated changes or to defer crystallising gains afterwards, or both. Many might now be waiting for a future government to bring the CGT burden back down, others might be put off by the higher tax environment from setting up or investing in businesses in the first place. But all that will not be evident for some time.

“The CGT take has revealed little or no boost to the Treasury coffers from the reduction of the annual exemption. Final revenue data shows that CGT brought in £16.93 billion in 2022/23, £14.50bn in 2023/24 and just £13.06bn in 2024/25, suggesting that many investors were reluctant to sell up with this diminished level of protection.”