every week, FTSE 100 index Income stocks pay over £1bn on average to shareholders in dividends.

This is just the FTSE 100. Many small British companies also pay huge sums in dividends.

So, can anyone aim to build significant wealth over the long term simply by investing in carefully selected UK income stocks?

I think the answer is yes, for three main reasons.

A trilogy of wealth creation tools

The first reason is to benefit from regular long-term investment.

Even with relatively modest amounts, dripping money into a long-term investment could mean things will add up soon.

The second factor is the amount of profits you can add to the invested money. Dividends are never guaranteed, but they can be significant.

If it persists, a person who buys one share in a company today will likely receive dividends from it for decades — perhaps all his life, if he sticks with it.

The third factor is what is known as the compound. This means reinvesting profits and thus earning more profits.

Billionaire Warren Buffett compares the doubling of income stocks to pushing a snowball downward. As it rolls, the snowball becomes exponentially larger because the snow picks up more snow, and so on. In the stock market, this snow can be dividend income!

It all adds up – sometimes to a lot!

For example, let’s say someone starts with nothing today and then invests £500 per month and doubles their portfolio by 5% per month.

5% is much higher than the current FTSE 100 index It yields 2.9%, but there are plenty of blue-chip income stocks in the UK offering a yield of 5% or higher.

In this illustration, at the end of the 35-year period, the portfolio should be worth more than £1554000.

So the investor would be halfway to becoming a millionaire, on the back of investing £500 per month.

One profit share to consider

I mentioned above that there are plenty of income stocks in the UK that yield over 5%. One is Lucky hit Manufacturer British American Tobacco Company (LSE: bat).

The FTSE 100 stock has a yield of 5.4%. It also has a track record of annual increases in its earnings per share, stretching back decades.

Management aims to maintain upcoming annual earnings growth. But cigarette sales volumes are declining and look set to continue to do so. This could hurt profits and the company’s ability to finance its costly dividend.

However, despite lower cigarette sales volumes, British American could raise prices to help mitigate the impact on profits.

It has also expanded its product lineup in recent years, in an effort to build more non-cigarette sales. This may help it continue to generate significant cash flows in the future.

Some investors avoid tobacco stocks for ethical reasons, regardless of their income potential. But for those who don’t, I see British-Americans as a quota to consider.