The Sunday Times Tax List 2024: Biggest taxpayers in Yorkshire revealed

The top 100 people or families on the list were responsible for more than £5bn in tax over the last year – with Wren Kitchens founder Malcolm Healey topping the list in Yorkshire, with a tax liability of £52.1m. His company hit £1 billion in sales last year, making him Yorkshire’s richest man.

The second highest taxpayer in the region is the Shepherd family, who paid £35.1m in tax over the last 12 months. The family sold their construction company and are now focused on Portakabin - a portable and modular buildings company.

The sixth edition of the Tax List — released as millions of people race to meet the self-assessment deadline — features figures from the worlds of music and arts, high finance and the high street, as well as billionaire aristocrats and rags-to-riches entrepreneurs.

It includes Harry Potter author JK Rowling, boxer Anthony Joshua, Ed Sheeran, the Duke of Westminster and even a scrap metal dealer.

Malcolm and his family were listed as the 70th wealthiest family in the UK in the 2021 Sunday Times Rich List, when their estimated net worth was £1.43 billion. He currently owns Warter Priory, a 12,000-acre estate near Pocklington, which he bought for a reported £48 million in 1998. He ranked 21 on the national list.

Also in the Yorkshire top taxpayers were Mark Hunter and Andrew Vincent, who founded Leeds-based BJSS which has provided software and other IT services to Barclays, the BBC, Waitrose, the NHS and BP. The Tordoff family, who run JCT600, also made the list alongside Richard and Christine Teatum, who own Stoneacre.

The full list can be found below.

Robert Watts, the compiler of The Sunday Times Tax List, said: “This has been the highest taxing government since the Second World War and although the total tax take is up – it is only by 3.3 per cent. Bernie Ecclestone seems to have saved Jeremy Hunt's blushes. The total tax found in this year's research would have been a wedge lower were it not for the vast sum shelled out by the Formula One tycoon to settle a long-running investigation.

"If you look at the bottom 98 in this year's list they paid £4.0335 billion, £200 million less than last year. That’s the amount the government pledged to the NHS to boost winter resilience. Two thirds of the wealthy individuals in 2023's Tax List were found to have paid less tax this year. That was usually because their businesses have reported lower profits. But lower tax receipts from the UK's richest people may raise more than the odd eyebrow at a time when the public finances remain stretched and there is talk of budget giveaways in the air.

"Since our first Tax List five years ago our research has found there are wealthy people who do contribute a great deal to the public finances. But we do know our readers like to compare the names on the Tax List with those with the Rich List and wonder why there are not more people who feature on both lists."

The top 8 tax payers in Yorkshire

1. Malcolm Healey (£52.1m, 21st nationally)
2. The Shepherd family (£35.1m, 35th)
3. Mark Hunter (£25m, 48th)
4. Andrew Vincent (£25m, 48th)
5. The Tordoff family (£17.4m, 66th)
6. Richard and Christine Teatum (£16.7m, 68th)
7. Frank Hester (£14.8m, 73rd)
8. The Bailey family (£10.8m 95th)

Top 10 taxpayers in the UK

1. Alex Gerko – £664.5m
2. Bernie Ecclestone – £652.6m
3. Denise, John and Peter Coates – £375.9m
4. Fred and Peter Done and family – £204.6m
5. Sir Tim Martin – £167.1m
6. Sir James Dyson and family – £156m
7. The Weston family – £146.2m
8. Mike Ashley – £139.4m
9. John Bloor £118.1m
10. John Timpson and family – £99.8m