Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Survey of Personal Incomes (SPI) is based on information held by HM Revenue and Customs tax offices on individuals who could be liable to UK income tax. It is carried out annually by HMRC and covers income assessable to tax for each tax year. Not all of them are taxpayers because the operation of personal reliefs and allowances may remove them from liability. Where income exceeds the threshold for operation of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE), the survey provides the most comprehensive and accurate official source of data on personal incomes. The SPI is compiled to provide a quantified evidence base from which to cost proposed changes to tax rates, personal allowances and other tax reliefs for Treasury Ministers. It is used to inform policy decisions within HMRC and the Treasury, as well as for tax modelling and forecasting purposes. In addition, it is used to provide summary information for the National Accounts that are prepared by the Office for National Statistics. Finally, it is used to provide information to Members of Parliament, other Government Departments, companies, organisation and individuals. The UK Data Archive currently holds the Public Use Tape (PUT) data for 1985-86 and 1995-96 onwards (data for 2008-09 is currently unavailable). For further details of sampling and coverage criteria, see documentation. Further information about the SPI, including income tax and personal incomes statistics, is available on the GOV.UK Statistics about personal incomes webpage.
Main Topics:The Public Use Tape (PUT) dataset is an anonymised dataset and is based on the SPI. It allows users to produce their own analysis. The dataset contains a range of variables about personal incomes arising from employment, self employment, pension, benefits, property, savings, investments and other income sources. The dataset also contains variables about allowances, deductions and reliefs, which people might be due. There is also a regional code variable on the dataset and a trade code for cases which are self-employed. A list of data items on the Public Use Tape is provided in Annex A of the documentation.
Separate samples are drawn from each of the HMRC operational computer systems and different sampling strategies are used for each. Once data has been collected for the three constituent parts of the sample, the datasets are joined together.
For one-third of the cases, the data were collected by paper return. For remaining cases, the data were captured electronically from an extract of Inland Revenue information technology (IT) systems.
HMRC collects information about people who could be liable to UK tax to assess whether they have paid the correct amount of tax. The SPI is based on a sample of these administrative records. The tax districts collect the data in the course of the administrative process of tax collection.
