Sir Tim Martin reveals every Wetherspoons pub is paying £1million into the general public purse amid Labour’s tax raid Budget

Sir Tim Martin has revealed that each of his Wetherspoons pubs is paying more than £1million into the public purse after Labour’s tax raid budget.

In the last tax year, Wetherspoon’s 794 pubs paid a total of £837.1million in taxes from levies like corporation tax, business rates, slot machine duty, and VAT.

Sir Tim himself has a hefty personal contribution of nearly £200million in taxes due to his 26.7 per cent stake in the pub chain’s shares.

He told The Times: ‘Taxes are a political issue. Parties put forward their ideas and voters decide… that’s democracy. But the inequality between pubs and supermarkets is unfair. It is hobbling pubs.’

While more than 2,000 pubs have closed in the last five years, as business rates among other taxes soar due to the Labour budget, Sir Tim believes boozers should be allowed certain breaks from paying levies.

Pubs should not have to charge VAT on meals, the pub baron believes, pointing out that food at supermarkets is free from VAT.

The UK’s 20 per cent VAT rate is double that of our European counterparts in France, Germany and Spain, where it is 10 per cent.

Wetherspoon’s owner Sir Tim Martin revealed that each of his pubs paid over £1million in taxes this last year

The pub baron believes pubs should not have to charge VAT on meals, pointing out supermarkets do not charge it on the food they sell. VAT is easily the company’s biggest tax expense at £411.2million, nearly half of their £837.1million tax bill

He said: ‘If you had equality between pubs and supermarkets, you’d find you’d have a much stronger hospitality industry in the UK, bringing in much more tax than you’d lose from the VAT cut.’

VAT is Wetherspoon’s biggest tax expense at £411.2million a year, or £517,880 on average per pub, according to the JD Wetherspoon annual report. Then comes alcohol duty at £166.5million a year (£209,700 per pub).

National Insurance Contributions were hiked in Labour’s October 2024 budget, and the company’s PAYE and National Insurance was £153.6million in the last year or £193,450 per pub. November 2025’s budget is set to increase business rates too this April – last year the pub chain paid £42.2million in business rates, or about £53,150 for each pub.

Business rates for many pubs are due to skyrocket following Labour’s budget with the ending of Covid relief and revaluations set to come in in April.

The government have U-turned on this however to soften to blow and will allow a 15 per cent discount for pubs and freeze business rates in real terms for two years, but this has been branded as ‘too little, too late’ by Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride.

In the face of rising taxes, Sir Tim said he suspects younger entrepreneurs will be put off starting their business in the UK, perhaps preferring the US or other more ‘business-friendly’ places. 

A fifth of Spoons pubs have closed since 2015 when there were 951 dotted across the country, and the company’s share price is still down more than 50 per cent from its pre-pandemic peak.

But the model appears to work, with the pubs being packed out by punters regularly.

Speaking on how much tax his pubs have to pay, Sir Tim said: ‘What it gives you, which you don’t really get anywhere else, is an insight into the economic value of business.

‘It shows that if you have a Wetherspoon pub in your high street by a raft of different taxes, it’ll generate a lot of income for the country and for the town.’

While he was an avid campaigner for Brexit, donating £200,000 to the Leave campaign, he refused to buddy up with political characters this time around. 

Instead, he took a more ideological position, saying he would tell the powers that be from all sides of the political spectrum that ‘free trade, free enterprise and freedom of speech is best’.

He jokingly offered that Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer and Ed Davey should come for a pint with him so he can ‘put them straight’. The offer was extended to President Donald Trump, who he wants to ‘convert to free trade’ after his ‘very, very erratic’ tariffs.