Labour claims Reform's crypto tax cut would hand £500m to 240 millionaires

The Labour party has circulated an analysis claiming that Reform UK's pledge to cut capital gains tax on cryptoassets to a flat 10% would be worth around £500m over a five-year parliament to a group of 240 crypto millionaires, according to a briefing carried by the Guardian's politics live blog on Friday.

The figure is a Labour calculation applied to statistics published by HM Revenue and Customs last month, not an official costing. No Treasury, HMRC or Office for Budget Responsibility assessment of the policy has been published, and Labour has not released the methodology behind the projection.

The analysis lands six days after two crypto investors, Ben Delo, a co-founder of the exchange BitMEX, and Christopher Harborne, a shareholder in Tether's parent company, each pledged £36m to Reform UK, a combined £72m committed on consecutive days on 11 and 12 September.

HMRC published crypto-specific capital gains figures for the first time on 27 August, covering the 2024-25 tax year. They show about 17,600 individuals reported taxable cryptoasset disposals, with £13.8bn of disposal proceeds and £1.38bn of gains. Of those, 240 people each reported more than £1m of cryptoasset gains, totalling £717m between them, more than half the declared total.

Setting out its figures, Labour said in the briefing quoted by the Guardian: "Reform's policy on crypto includes cutting capital gains tax (CGT) on crypto assets from the current level of 24% (for higher-rate taxpayers) and 18% (for basic-rate taxpayers) to a flat 10%. Analysis of this policy shows that most of Reform's tax giveaways would go to a very small high-earning group, after official HMRC statistics published last month found that 240 people in 2024/25 reported more than £1m in capital gains from crypto assets."

Cutting the higher rate from 24% to 10% would reduce the tax due on £717m of gains by about £100m in a single year. Labour's £500m assumes that saving repeats across five years. The projection takes no account of price movements, changes in behaviour or changes in the composition of the group, and the HMRC data covers only gains declared to the tax authorities. A basic-rate taxpayer would save eight percentage points rather than 14.

The policy itself is not new. Nigel Farage announced the cut at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on 29 May 2025, alongside a Bank of England bitcoin reserve and protections against debanking. Reform UK has since published a draft Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill, which also provides for a two-year regulatory sandbox and the acceptance of crypto for tax payments.

A Reform UK spokesperson, quoted by the Independent, which first reported the analysis, defended the party's approach without addressing the costing. "Reform UK are the only party calling for proper regulation of cryptocurrency and ensuring that consumers are protected," the spokesperson said. "Labour and the Tories don't even have a plan."

A Labour spokesperson said: "Farage and Reform are drowning in sleaze and scandal. They can't buy their way out of the questions that the public need answers to." The spokesperson added: "It's clear Reform is on the side of a handful of crypto-billionaires, while Labour is delivering the change people across the country want to see."

Reform UK has said that Delo and Harborne have not asked for anything in return for their money. Farage has previously said of an earlier £9m donation from Harborne that the donor "wants nothing from me".

The government is legislating on political donations. Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, told Sky News on 13 September: "If you don't pay taxes, if you don't live here, you can't buy your way into our democracy because you're a billionaire". HuffPost UK reported that the Labour MP Phil Brickell has asked the Electoral Commission to clarify whether the two pledges are permissible.