Hammond belts self employed
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CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond is facing a White Van Man backlash after his £145million tax raid on the self-employed.
He raised National Insurance payments and hacked a tax-free allowance for millions of workers during his first Budget yesterday.
The Chancellor’s controversial move will add an average 60p a week to a selfemployed tax bill, that flies in the face of the Tory election manifesto.
In 2015, the Tories said: “A Conservative Government will not increase the rates of VAT, Income Tax or National Insurance in the next Parliament.”
Mr Hammond was savaged by critics who said the rises “hammered” small businesses and amounted to a “tax on entrepreneurs”.
But the Chancellor defended the plans, saying self-employed workers paying lower National Insurance rates “undermines the fairness of our tax system”.
He added: “People should have choices about how they work, but those choices should not be driven primarily by difference in tax treatment.
Slashed
“The employed and the self-employed use public services in the same way but the lower National Insurance contributions from the self-employed will cost the public £5billion this year alone. This is not fair to employees.”
The proposed rise is from nine to 10% in 2018, and to 11% in 2019.
Small business owners who pay themselves company dividends were not spared.
From next April they will see their tax-free dividend allowance slashed from £5,000 to just £2,000.
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Baroness Kramer said: “This is a tax on builders, taxi drivers and window cleaners, some of Britain’s hardest-working people.”
Mike Cherry, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said the rise “undermines the Government’s own mission for the UK to be the best place to start and grow a business, and it drives up the cost of doing business.”
Emma Jones, founder of small business support group Enterprise Nation, said: “We got hammered.”
The measures helped raise cash for elsewhere, as he announced a £2billion injection for social care.
But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused Mr Hammond of “utter complacency” about the state of the economy, public services and the lives of millions of people.