A quarter of all of Britain's income tax revenues this year will be paid by just one per cent of earners, according to official data.

The figure is in sharp contrast to 1978, an era associated with supertaxes, when the top one per cent paid 11 per cent of all the tax revenues.

Experts suggested the projections, published by HM Revenue and Customs, was evidence of how the rich had got richer over the last three decades, while the tax burden on them had increased substantially in recent years.

The new top rate of 50p income tax rate came into force in April 2010, landing a small number of people with the highest rate of income tax since 1988.

It is not yet fully clear how much money this top rate of tax, introduced by the former Labour government, will raise. However, last week the HMRC published its forecasts for all income tax revenues for the current tax year. It suggested that 275,000 individual, those that will pay the 50p rate, will pay £41.4 billion in tax – 25.7 per cent of the country's total income tax bill.

In total there is expected to be 30.6 million taxpayers this tax year.

In 2008-2009 it took 648,000 of the richest taxpayers to pay a quarter of the country's income tax revenues.

John Whiting, the Tax Policy Director of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said: "The rich are getting proportionately richer, and therefore are paying more tax.

"In a curious way it demonstrates what a contribution they make. It is well worth the country attempting to keep them here. In trading terms, they make a considerable profit for the taxman."

There have been fears in the City that the 50p tax rate would drive out many businessmen from London. Though some hedge funds have relocated to Switzerland there is no evidence of companies or individuals relocating offshore in substantial numbers.

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)