{"id":9274,"date":"2017-03-08T16:18:20","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T16:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uk-controversy-over-self-employed-tax\/"},"modified":"2017-03-08T16:18:20","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T16:18:20","slug":"uk-controversy-over-self-employed-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/uk-controversy-over-self-employed-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"UK controversy over self-employed tax"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><figcaption>Media captionThe changes are expected to raise \u00a3145m a year by 2021-22<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced an extra \u00a32bn for under-pressure social care services in England in the Budget.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hammond promised to help firms hit by business rate rises - but was accused of breaking the Conservative manifesto by increasing national insurance for self-employed people.<\/p>\n<p>On the economy he said growth was expected to be higher - and borrowing lower - than forecast in November. <\/p>\n<p>Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said it was &quot;a Budget of utter complacency&quot;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Budget Live: Rolling text and video coverage<\/li>\n<li>At-a-glance summary: Budget key points<\/li>\n<li>What the Budget means for you<\/li>\n<li>Analysis: &#039;Spreadsheet Phil&#039;s&#039; cautionary tale<\/li>\n<li>10 charts that show what\u2019s gone wrong with social care<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The government has been under pressure to offer more resources for social care budgets, with council leaders warning the entire system stands on the &quot;brink of collapse&quot; without an immediate cash injection and a commitment to a long-term solution.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hammond acknowledged the system was under pressure with an ageing population, and said the new \u00a32bn for services in England over the next three years would allow councils to &quot;act now to commission new care packages&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He also said the government would set out the options for long-term funding of the social care system later in the year - although these would not include a &quot;death tax&quot;.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Media captionShadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Peter Dowd says the government has their priorities &quot;absolutely wrong&quot;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mr Hammond said he made &quot;no apology&quot; for raising extra money through taxation, &quot;in ways which enhance the fairness of the system&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>In his first Budget, this included an increase in National Insurance rates for self-employed people.<\/p>\n<p>He said the disparity between the rates paid by the self-employed and employees &quot;undermines the fairness of our tax system&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Class 4 National Insurance contributions will go up to 10% from 9% and to 11% in April 2019, he told MPs.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>Media captionChief Secretary to the Treasury tells The World at One the &quot;majority&quot; of the self-employed will see a tax reduction<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A separate category of National Insurance payments, Class 2, are already being abolished from 2018, and Mr Hammond said that taken together this meant an average 60p a week increase in NI payments for self-employed person.<\/p>\n<p>On its own, the change announced in the Budget will leave 2.84 million people facing an average annual increase of \u00a3240.<\/p>\n<p>The government immediately faced accusations of breaking a Conservative manifesto pledge not to increase VAT, National Insurance contributions or income tax.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reality check: Has manifesto pledge been broken?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ministers said this promise related to the class of National Insurance paid by employees, not the self-employed.<\/p>\n<p>Some Conservative MPs also raised concerns. &quot;I don&#039;t think we should be going out of our way to tax work, growth and enterprise and success,&quot; said former Tory minister John Redwood.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>Opening his statement, Mr Hammond said the UK economy &quot;continued to confound the commentators with robust growth&quot;, and promised his Budget would provide a &quot;strong and stable platform&quot; for the Brexit negotiations to come.<\/p>\n<p>As predicted, there were improved economic forecasts via the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).<\/p>\n<p>The OBR has revised up its growth forecast from 1.4% to 2% for 2017, predicting it will slow to 1.6% in 2018 before returning to 2% in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Due to &quot;a number of one-off factors&quot;, borrowing was predicted to be \u00a316.8bn lower than previously forecast,  the chancellor said.<\/p>\n<p>However, as the UK prepares for Brexit, Mr Hammond said there was &quot;no room for complacency&quot;, and that the UK&#039;s deficit was still high, and productivity &quot;stubbornly low&quot;.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  PA                                                    <\/figure>\n<p>There were no unexpected rises in the Budget, with the chancellor sticking to the previously pencilled-in rises.<\/p>\n<p>So a packet of 20 cigarettes will cost 35p more from 18:00, while it will be 44p more for a 30g pack of hand rolled tobacco.<\/p>\n<p>A pint of beer will cost 2p more from Monday, from when duty on a bottle of Whisky will rise 36p, with gin up 34p, cider 1p and a bottle of still wine 10p.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      The chancellor promised business rates help for firms including a discount for pubs                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mr Hammond has been facing a backlash, including from Conservative MPs, over businesses facing rates rises as a result of the revaluation of premises that is about to come into force.<\/p>\n<p>The chancellor defended the revaluation, although he said he said it &quot;undoubtedly raised some hard cases&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He announced a \u00a3300m &quot;discretionary fund&quot; to be used by councils to help companies that are badly hit, and a \u00a350-per-month cap on increases for firms facing the loss of small business relief.<\/p>\n<p>In a further measure, he said 90% of pubs would be given a \u00a31,000 business rates discount.<\/p>\n<p>Other announcements included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The biggest money raising measure was a reduction in the tax-free dividend allowance for shareholders and directors of small private firms from \u00a35,000 to \u00a32,000<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3100m for new triages in English hospitals and an extra \u00a3325m for NHS reform programmes<\/li>\n<li>Transport spending of \u00a390m for the north of England and \u00a323m for the Midlands to address &quot;pinch points&quot; on roads<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3270m for maintenance of existing schools<\/li>\n<li>Extending free transport to all free school meals pupils who attend selective schools<\/li>\n<li>No change to previously-planned upratings of duties on alcohol and tobacco<\/li>\n<li>Additional funding of \u00a3350m for the Scottish government, \u00a3200m for the Welsh government and almost \u00a3120m for the Northern Ireland Executive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure><figcaption>Media captionJeremy Corbyn attacks the government over Budget &#039;complacency&#039;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Responding to Mr Hammond,  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Budget ignored the &quot;crisis facing our public services and the reality of daily life for millions of people in this country&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He accused the government of &quot;cutting living standards for the many and raising taxes for the few&quot;, and calculated there would be a \u00a370bn tax giveaway for &quot;those who need it the least&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, he said that instead of using \u00a310m to set up a children&#039;s funeral fund, the government was cutting support for bereaved families.<\/p>\n<p>For the SNP, Stewart Hosie said Brexit had barely been mentioned, despite the &quot;momentous&quot; challenge it posed.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberal Democrats said the social care announcement &quot;gives sticking plasters a bad name&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It is a woefully inadequate response to the impossible pressure the NHS and care services are under,&quot; Norman Lamb, the party&#039;s health spokesman, said.<\/p>\n<p>UKIP MP Douglas Carswell criticised what he called an &quot;attack&quot; on self-employed people through National Insurance rates, and said the Budget was not &quot;fundamentally sorting out the biggest problem we face&quot;, the UK&#039;s debt.<\/p>\n<p>Several spending announcements were made ahead of Mr Hammond&#039;s Commons statement.<\/p>\n<p>These included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A \u00a35m fund to mark the centenary of female suffrage next year<\/li>\n<li>An extra \u00a3500m for vocational and technical education in England<\/li>\n<li>A one-off \u00a3320m for 140 new schools in England, which could include grammars<\/li>\n<li>Measures to protect people who inadvertently end up subscribing for services after signing up for free trials<\/li>\n<li>Plans aimed at helping the North sea oil and gas industry<\/li>\n<li>\u00a3500m support for electric vehicles, robotics and artificial intelligence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Aside from the Budget, several previously-announced changes come into force in April, including an increase in the personal tax allowance to \u00a311,500, a new inheritance tax allowance, a rise in the annual ISA limit to \u00a320,000 and the introduction of a levy to fund apprenticeships.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you want to know about the Budget? Send us your questions or ideas and a BBC journalist will investigate and answer the most popular.<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty<figcaption>Image caption                                      The chancellor posed with his red box before leaving Downing Street to head to Parliament                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Use this form to ask your question: <\/p>\n<p>If you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic. <\/p>\n<p><a rel='nofollow' href=http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-39196579 target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Media captionThe changes are expected to raise \u00a3145m a year by 2021-22 Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced an extra \u00a32bn for under-pressure social care services in England in the Budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}