Just listening to the post budget debate and the increase in NI contributions for self employed. And several people over complaining about the 60p per week increase. Painful. It’s 60p.

an extra 6p on GT85 I see. Typical tories.

Pretty uneventful – hence a relatively small adjustment, sorry MANIFESTO COMMTTMENT BROKEN, becomes the main story along with, it’s difficult making accurate forecasts at the moment, NSS!

So growth is going to trot a long at just below 2% for next few years, we will continue to spend more than we earn, cuts will be back loaded and debt will fall very modestly. I am glad I haven’t got to fill tomorrows papers…

It is a boring budget.

Self-employed people are all single handily driving this economy – don’t you know that? If we Tax them they’ll employ less people and we’ll all be ruined – THAT IS A FACT.

It’s wrong that that should pay almost as much as PAYE tax payers.

Anyway, joking aside – it’s all on it’s head – the Tories have just increased tax for the self-employed and increased funding for social care and Labour are arguing with them.

Next week Labour will call for a single flat rate of tax and to hand over the NHS to Sky to run and the Tories will call for standardised salaries to ensure Women and Minorities are paid the same.

TMH Tories enshrined their budget commitment in law in 2015, it explictiy did not include self employed NI.

?

Explicitly? How did they word it?

Change to divi allowances will cost far more, how can anyone plan when he’s already changing something only recently implemented.

The self-employed NI is two things really; firstly, against their manifesto and secondly a definite move to tax everyone the same, irrelevant of the status (see IR35 changes, and possible move across all sectors in the future).

The Government argues that the legislation that enacted the tax lock laws, passed in 2015, specifically referred to Class 1 (employee) National Insurance Contributions, not Class 4 for the self-employed.

The manifesto was more generally worded but IMO was clearly focused on PAYE. I forget the exact figure quoted on Sky but it would be a small proportion of self employed who’d be affected, top 20% only ?

I take the 2015 law as a hell of a lot more significant than the manifesto.

Jambas, that’s an extraordinary generous interpretation the even the Tory spinners have not been peddling. Yes, technically, the law was subsequently tighter in scope than the manifesto. But at the very least they broke the spirit of their commitment – its a gamble they were prepared to take.

But if this is main headline, it shows what an unremarkable budget it was. LK has to make news and exaggerate for effect on the Beeb but even she could hardly be bothered tonight.

And the Hammond spake: “Though shalt not have any other method of remuneration than PAYE.”

It’s fine if self employed people pay the same tax. But if they don’t get the same security or benefits then they need paid more, or salaried people get paid less….

A lot of IT contractors cream in serious cash, so it doesn’t bother me in that sense, but there are a lot of lower paid contractors who balance the tax benefits against not having employment rights like paid holiday etc.

For them it’s very unfair and I can’t see this move being a massive money spinner for the government.. So my view is it’s a strange decision maybe designed to make it look like they are tackling tax avoidance with out penalising big companies.

It’s all very predictable.

NI is capped don’t forget, so when it rises it hits the lower earners proportional harder than the higher earners.
IT contractors “creaming in serious cash” won’t notice the change. Hairdressers, bakers and lecturers will.

was clearly focused on PAYE

Bullshit.
But we should let you off, it’s the post-rationalization being spun hard, so perhaps you’re just being misled this time.

I forget the exact figure quoted on Sky but it would be a small proportion of self employed who’d be affected, top 20% only ?

Only 20% of self employed pay class 4 NIC?
How will the increase raise the billions expected then?
The maths seems a bit off there.
You only need to be making about £9k to pay class 4.

I take the 2015 law as a hell of a lot more significant than the manifesto

People voted based on the manifesto, and repeated promises.
The fact it was weakened, or narrowed, and promises watered down, or pulled back from, when written into law, is no surprise.

Most IT contractors won’t be affected at all as most are not self employed – they usually take a salary of some description.

Just watching the news, hairdressers are going to be better off, salon owners not so much.

David Gauke getting a roasting on Newsnight

Why not just put your hands up and say – yes, fair cop, but it makes sense so we did it?

Still sad that this is the BIG story!!! At least Evan is refocusing on bigger issues now

Bands before the change:

Profit band Class 4 NI
Up to £8,060 nil
£8,060 up to £43,000 9%
Over £43,000 2%

If we Tax them they’ll employ less people and we’ll all be ruined – THAT IS A FACT.

By that argument we should be taxing big companies less because they employ more people…

its fine , self employed people will just spend more cash in bike shops to hide their earnings and keep below the thresholds 😀

Just watching the news, hairdressers are going to be better off, salon owners not so much.

Trainees on less than £8k ?

Anyone who thinks being self employed is an awesome way to avoid tax should give it a go! Think how much money you’ll save.
Don’t forget that if you don’t work you don’t get paid though – no pulling sickies for you…

By that argument we should be taxing big companies less because they employ more people…

SMEs employ more people than large companies.

As industries move from SME to large company provision, they employee fewer people.

A handy link: http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06078/SN06078.pdf

Of course neither the NI changes nor the dividend changes effect employees, or the cost of employing, so all irrelevant.

Peter Dowd no better now with the Shadow plans. FFS, they really are a desperate bunch

I’ve calculated that I’ll be about a fiver a month better off, but that’s eclipsed with general cost of living price rises, food, clothes, etc.

As I noted hours ago on the Jeremy Corbyn thread, there will be a serious dumping on Hammond as a result of the NI changes – this is completly unrelated to the fact many journalists are freelancers – politically courageous.

The most depressing thing about the whole manifesto commitment is that one of Cameron’s advisers said they only made it because there was a “hole in the grid”. My sincere hope is that Theresa May’s premiership will stop this lunacy – so far she has seemed very measured, but time will tell.

Time to quote a journalist…

James O’Brien? @mrjamesob 4 hours ago
Well-paid people in, ooh, the media who fear that NI changes may hit lower earners hard will, of course, be accused of self-interest. Smart.

Or another

Worse still, many high-profile columnists and talking heads will be hit by the change which means that the row will likely receive a disproportionate level of coverage for its impact.

But he said it after I did*

EDIT: He may have said it before me, but it wasn’t in print/pixel and available to hoi polloi until after my post.

Everyone I know self employed takes a salary at the threshold and then take a dividend – so no national insurance is paid…

Everyone I know self employed takes a salary at the threshold and then take a dividend – so no national insurance is paid…

By definition then they’re not self employed. They’re employed.

When I was self employed you had to pay class 2 and class 4.

You don’t take dividends unless you’ve got share capital and you are a share holder in your company. Which means you could only be employed.

Ok, but for all intensive purposes they are self employed. The freelance journalists will all be avoided NI

You would have thought that offering incentives to people to start a business would have been the way to go?

However this is not a Thatcher Tory Government, no encouragement for home ownership, starting a business is the polar opposite. Reducing Corp tax to very low levels is not designed to help SME s it’s to attract tax avoidance from global business – fairly obvious where they think the economy is going post brexit

When you take all the other changes already announced, looks like the point at which you are going to pay more is £16k, which is much better than I thought, protects those struggling most, but hardly a tax rise just for “those that can most afford it”.

Oldmanmtb has it spot on: take the NI, dividend threshold and Corp Tax changes planned, and it’s obvious that a shift is taking place… lower taxes for larger companies, higher taxes for small companies. Agree with his reasoning why… we need to encourage international companies to stay, expand, invest, when they’re likely to be looking at increases in all their trading costs… yet we also need to increase the tax take ready for the costs to the state of what’s ahead.

I suppose I have to embrace and accept that approach really… a wise budget part one.
Which taxes will rise in budget part two? If the money can’t be raised from big business?

I’m assuming that next time round they’ll sort out taxation on the cash-in-hand portion of the self employed’s income. 😆

TMH Tories enshrined their budget commitment in law in 2015, it explictiy did not include self employed NI.

I never understand why people defend any political party that lies so openly. Are you on the payroll?

^^^ hope so 🙂

Personally I have been lobbying my MP to introduce withholding tax on GIG economy apps, Uber, AirBnB, Deliveroo etc. Ensure people submit a tax return. Huge amount of evasion imo. 30,000 Ubers in London, Imwinder how many submit a tax return ?

I never understand why people defend any political party that lies so openly. Are you on the payroll?

All politicians lie, blatantly usually.

is anyone seriously surprised at a political party not keeping every single manifesto pledge? I mean really?

A self-employed hairdresser – with average earnings of £12,700 – will be £70 better off

A self-employed taxi driver – with average earnings of £17,300 – will be £20 worse off

A self-employed management consultant – with average earnings of £51,100 – will be £620 worse off.
What a lot of fuss about nothing. Given the headlines I was expecting to be about £500 worse off and now I find out it’ll be about a fifth of that.

The really annoying thing is that there is a vast difference between different types of self-employment. Those that choose it, those that are denied full-time, etc.
Personally, I choose to be self-employed despite the lack of financial benefits in order to be in more control and have increased flexibility.