NI Increases Scrapped

Published / Last Updated on 22/03/2017

NI Increases Scrapped.

In an embarrassing u-turn, the Government has withdrawn plans to increase National Insurance Contributions for the self-employed.

The cost to the Government is projected at around £0.5bn per year.  That’s a lot of NHS staff, care costs, school places etc.

Given though that the Government is already saving billions elsewhere, see our Budget Stealth Tax article (naa_catid: 8430) where even the soft drinks/pop levy raising £0.4bn will almost cover this, we do not see this as a major impact on the Government finance.

That said, indirectly, the Government will probably save even more by not being forced to offer the self employed similar benefits as employees such as maternity pay, paternity pay, unemployment benefits and statutory sick pay.

Comment

We actually think the increase in self-employed NIC made sense.  We all have access to the NHS, social services etc, so why should employees and employers pay significantly more NIC than the self-employed? 

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