I received this letter today from the FSB Policy Director and small business owner, Martin McTague and thought that you would find it interesting and may want to hav your say.
As a small business owner and FSB Policy Director, I was extremely disappointed by the Chancellor’s announcement on Wednesday to raise the class four national insurance contributions for the self-employed to 11 per cent by 2019. FSB believes this is wrong, unwarranted and ill-conceived. For this reason, we have publicly called on the Chancellor and Government to think again on this measure. We are pleased to see in response to this call, that legislation to introduce this fundamentally unfair tax has been delayed. We will use this time to lobby the Government not to progress with this tax hike.
The Government appears to have misunderstood that the work of the genuinely self-employed is fundamentally different to that of employees. They do not have the same access to benefits, but do have higher barriers of entry to access financial services/ products and mortgages. The tax system must reflect and reward our entrepreneurs for taking the risk to set themselves up in business. The self-employed impacted by this announced tax increase are the hardworking moderate earners in the self -employed community: the plumbers and electricians; the hairdressers and mechanics, but also the musicians and the writers in our creative sector. These are the strivers – the people that the Government says it wants to support. These are the entrepreneurs found in every community, that drive our economy.
As an organisation, we were founded in 1974 in direct response to the then rise in class four national insurance contributions and in time we were successful in having this overturned. Today, FSB is a community of small businesses and the self-employed across the UK. Together, we will continue to defend the interests of the self-employed and those incorporated businesses affected by upcoming changes to dividend taxation. To help with our campaign, I would ask every fellow member – self-employed or otherwise – to write in their own words to their local MP in the next few days about the impact of this change on their business.
To help Martin then if you receive anything back in response please send it to MP.Correspondence@fsb.org.uk and hopefully we can get something moving.
