Thousands of higher earners are expected to retire early, work less or even move abroad to escape the 50% top tax rate on incomes above £150,000.

The budget has also reduced the incentive to have one high-earner in a family, given that the personal allowance will be clawed back above £100,000 from next April. You would be better off having two earners to benefit from an allowance each.

The tax changes are expected to prompt the loss of 140,000 jobs over the next three years, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said, losing the government £800m a year in revenue, as there is “less incentive for workers to make the kind of amounts that made the high-income tax receipts Britain has seen in recent years”.

High-income earners who keep working can beat the top tax rate by converting income to gains, charged at a flat 18% in capital-gains tax (CGT). However, this was made more difficult by the government’s crackdown on tax avoidance last week.

We look at 10 ways you can beat the tax on the rich.

1 SACRIFICE SOME SALARY

Salary sacrificing allows employees to give up pre-tax earnings in exchange for benefits from their employers such as pension contributions and workplace childcare vouchers.

By paying for benefits out of pre-tax salary you can cut the income on which you have to pay tax — if you fall below one of the top tax thresholds you could avoid the 50% rate or the loss of the personal allowance for incomes above £100,000.

The government has moved to prevent people earning over £150,000 bringing down their income by making extra pensions contributions (see page 7), but salary sacrifice will still work for other benefits — or if you earn less than £150,000.

If you could bring your income down below £150,000 to, say, £140,000, you would, naturally, be subject to the 40% not the 50% rate. You can do this by buying childcare vouchers out of your pre-tax income — a couple can buy £110 a week in vouchers or £5,720 a year to pay for care for children up to the age of 16, including after-school care. A single person can buy £55 a week worth of vouchers.

Children must attend a registered childcare minder who has an arrangement with the employer offering the scheme.

You can also take a company car as a way of reducing your income. In this case the employer leases a car on your behalf, costing, say, £3,000. The employer then asks you to give up £3,000 out of your gross salary — you would still have to pay benefit-in-kind tax on £1,000 but you can avoid tax and National Insurance contributions (Nics) on £2,000 if you take a low-carbon emission car. This alone saves £1,230.