Every police officer in Britain to face 40% tax rate within six years | UK | News

Every police officer in Britain will have to pay 40% tax within six years after the Government’s disaster budget. New analysis by the Police Federation of England and Wales has found that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to freeze income tax and National Insurance thresholds until 2031 will move almost the entire police workforce into the higher income tax band within six years, an unprecedented shift that will hit take-home pay for officers at all levels, including the lowest paid.

This change comes despite a decade of below-inflation pay awards; This means the purchasing power of police salaries is 20% lower than in 2010. Although it is becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet, civil servants – even those at the lowest levels – now have to pay 40% income tax on part of their salaries instead of 20%.

The so-called “fiscal drift” has created a hidden tax spiral that will swallow up future pay awards and accelerate the financial pressures currently driving the Police Federation’s Copped Enough campaign, which calls for police officers to be appropriately compensated for the toll that protecting the public takes on them.

Key findings from the federation’s new analysis revealed:

• By 2030-31, almost every civil servant will be a higher taxpayer

Before the threshold was frozen, less than 1 in 5 full-time federal officers (about 19%) paid the higher rate tax. By 2024-25, this figure had already reached more than half of all civil servants.

Under current Government policy, this figure is projected to reach 97.8% by 2030-31; This means almost every full-time civil servant in England and Wales will rise above the £50,270 threshold.

• Police officers are most affected

Police officers are seen as the engine room of policing, but for the first time in modern history the average police officer will be taxed at a higher rate.

The Federation’s analysis shows that the average Civil Servant salary will pass the higher rate threshold in 2027-28. By 2030-31, 99.8% of full-time Police Officers are expected to pay the higher rate; this was a figure previously limited to senior ranks.

• “Pay progression” no longer means taking home more

Under government policy, any Police Officer currently serving in 2025 and progressing up the pay scale as normal will automatically drop into the higher rate band by 2031.

This means that almost all mid-career civil servants’ pay rises will be covered by tax immediately, rather than reflected in their bank accounts.

• Taxation eliminates the value of salary awards

Average officer salary includes overtime, allowances and specialist pay; because they are taxed on them. With the government freeze locked in until 2031, fiscal drift, not real earnings growth, is pushing civil servants into higher tax brackets.

The result means the value of each pay award falls as soon as it is announced, which the Federation describes as “a structural change, not a temporary squeeze”.

Previously, only Inspection ranks and above routinely faced higher rates of tax. The government freeze has changed this landscape. Over the next five years, the high-rate tax will become the default, not the exception, at every federal level.

Mukund Krishna, chief executive of the Police Federation, said: “This new analysis is too harsh. Freezing tax thresholds until 2031 means almost every police officer in England and Wales will be paying a higher rate of tax within six years. Not because they earn more, but because the Government has designed a system that quietly drags them into higher taxation every year. This is a stealth tax in its purest form.”

“The higher rate tax, which used to apply to senior ranks, is now impacting on the average Police Officer. Everywhere we go, officers tell us the same thing: they are working harder, they are under more pressure, but they are taking home less. It is a system that is causing a loss of experience as record numbers of officers resign. Unless the government acts urgently to reform police pay and create a truly independent and fair mechanism with collective bargaining and binding arbitration at its heart, the impact on community safety will be huge.”

“Our Enough Copped campaign represents fairness, respect and proper support for policing. This Budget takes us further in the wrong direction.”

The Police Federation of England and Wales represents more than 145,000 police officers up to the rank of chief inspector and special constables.