The Tories are no different from the thieving Labour scum.
Philip Hammond set out a brighter outlook for the economy in the short term, and used his spring budget to introduce a controversial tax rise for the self-employed and inject £2bn into social care over three years.
The chancellor said he would increase class 4 national insurance contributions by 1 percentage point to 10% in April 2018, rising again to 11% in 2019. Campaigners said the self-employed were the “biggest losers” of the chancellor’s financial statement.
Ah, yes, let’s hit the self-employed because we manage to fly under the radar. Never mind that we take greater risks and never mind that should we need to claim any benefits we are at a disadvantage as I discovered some seven years ago upon my return from France. Decades of paying NI contributions meant nothing – as I wasn’t employed via PAYE or long-term unemployed, I fell into a gap. I managed to squeeze JSA out of them for a few weeks, but that was it. So, yes, I damned well expect to pay less.
But the most controversial measure was raising national insurance paid by the self-employed closer to the 12% paid by those in salaried employment.
Treasury sources defended the decision, insisting that this particular levy was not included in tax lock legislation laid down after the 2015 election.
They also argued that those hit were better off professionals because lower paid workers would benefit from the abolition of class 2 NICs.
Bullshit! I am not a better off professional. My profit is modest to say the least and this will hit me – as is usual with these raises, those at the bottom end of the scale are proportionally worse off as a consequence. We are well aware what this all about. Being self-employed means that I can minimise my exposure to these thieving charlatans and therefore reduce their tax take. And like the idiots on the opposition benches, they conflate avoidance – which is legal – with evasion, which is not. It merely increases my determination to be as aggressive as I possibly can with my avoidance strategies. This is a good thing as they will only waste it. Instead of cynically stealing more from the likes of me they could save billions by not giving my money to kleptomaniacs in third-world countries and not giving it to the parasitic public health lobby and not giving it to other so-called charities that will used the money to campaign for ever more restrictions on my liberties and they could stop spending it on media, culture and sport, none of which is any business of government. But, no, as usual for the hard-of-thinking, they steal from us.
The claims that we will benefit as a consequence of paying more is pure delusion. We will simply pay more and if we need to ask for a pittance back, we will have to fight tooth and nail to get it. So, I would rather have the money in my pocket thanks very much. And if the state is struggling for funds, then it should do what the rest of us do when short of money – stop fucking spending it.
These people are scum. Thieving scum.
Appearing to reverse a Conservative party manifesto pledge from 2015, Philip Hammond risked irking his backbenchers and party supporters by announcing he is to close tax benefits that can “no longer be justified”.
The chancellor said an employee earning £32,000 a year faces a national insurance bill of £6,170 along with their employer, while the bill for a self-employed person earning the same salary would come to £2,300.
Yeah, you try walking into the Job Centre and try getting any benefits when it all goes tits up and see what happens. We take higher risks so the reduced tax is more than justified. How about this, why not reduce what you steal from the employed? Oh, no, you won’t do that, will you because you will have to cut your cloth and that just won’t do at all.
“Historically the differences reflected different entitlements to the state pension, but with the introduction of the new state pension the difference has been substantially reduced,” he said.
What fucking pension? I mean, seriously, as I grow older, the pension entitlement – that I have paid for – slips ever further away. The whole thing was a massive Ponzi scheme and this government – a Tory government no less – is perpetuating it and forcing people like me to pay into it under the threat of violence.
The policy was welcomed by the Resolution Foundation, which said: “These tax differences are actually driving the big increase in self-employment we’ve seen in recent years, which in turn is undermining the taxman’s ability to get revenues in.
The taxman is nothing other than a blood-sucking leech, so it damned well should get less. Much, much less.
John Overs, partner at international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, said: “The chancellor equates the position of the employed and self-employed including those working for their own companies, doing similar jobs and earning similar amounts but fails to appreciate the self-employed normally have much more financial risk and much less security than the employed. Trying to equalise tax treatment fails to recognise these differences.
Precisely.
Leg Iron also comments on this.
Long term reader, first comment. Could not agree more. Taxation is, mostly, theft. The state is never sated. The founding principles of liberty have long since been trampled by politicans of every hue. I am not sure where comfort can be taken, how is this not blindingly obvious? I, sadly, see no change to the status quo and the alternative to this ‘conservative’ party do not bare consideration.
Keep up the commentary LR, thank you.
Indeed, they are marginally less dreadful than the alternative and that is not an endorsement.
Hammond apparently hates the self-employed. Yet they are the folks who go out on a limb and take risks, with no safety net. And, post-Brexit, they may prove more valuable to the UK economy than employees of multi-nationals who, if it suits their bottom line, may decamp elsewhere. Is there anyone in this current government who possesses a brain?
Quite so. They talk of fairness, yet we take risks the employed do not take. If I am sick, I either drag myself in because I let the client down otherwise, or I go without pay. I choose to take that risk for the benefits of running my own business. But given that the state does not give back fairly when I need it, I fail to see why stealing more from me is in any way fair. It’s just another attempt to prop up the thieving parasites of the state and the NGOs.
Why should the tax system reward the private risk calculations that the self employed make? If being self employed gets you a better rate than being a permie then make a reasoned determination as to whether it’s worth going for. If it doesn’t orvthe advantage is marginal them don’t be self employed.
How do you imagine that the “self employed” are going to get us out of the brexit hole the country has dug for itself? International trade is what’s required and on favourable terms. If I were a trade negotiator then I’d become self employed and make a fortune of out the clueless brexiters.
Oh God, typical Remoaner garbage. You do realise don’t you that trade is between businesses and consumers not countries? No, you probably don’t. So a UK self-employed person who trades with a country outside the EU still has to apply EU rules to his or her business – and all the red tape that goes with it. Most of UK trade is internal anyway, and only 44% of our exports go to the EU (and that doesn’t include the Rotterdam effect). It’s the small businesses that produce most of the country’s GDP; and your want to hinder them even more.
Nice!
@LR
Agree with your anger. Disapointed Tim W did not mention the NI hike for self-employed on his blog or Forbes.
Hammond & May confirming “Conservative” politicians are still Blu-Lab and May is to the left of Cameron.
Pay the same NI yet no sick-pay, holiday-pay, mat/pat-ernity paid leave, redunancy payments etc. Risk to capital invested also ignored.
Fair as Hammond claims? Bullshit.
What left Gov’t wants is everyone on PAYE. This will drive more SE into cash black market and deter them from growing business by employing others.
Hammond is continuing Clarke & Osbornes appeal-to/appease the left-mob whilst damaging UK economy.
It’s sickening.
Actually it’s extremely funny. And what left mob? The country’s just voted to terminate its association with the liberal mafia of the EUSSR. I thought populism was considered to be good?
There is nothing “liberal” about the EUSSR.
Right wingers complaining about “unfairness” of the budget. Now that’s genuinely funny. Still if you don’t like the Tories, I guess you could vote Labour LMAO.
Stephen. Posting twice in a row usually denotes someone talking to themselves…
I wouldn’t waste your time. Stephen is a drive-by troll. Anyone who talks of the centre ground as being “right wingers” loses all credibility. Not that he ever had much to start with.
What credibility?
I was being generous. Make the most of it, I have a low tolerance for idiocy usually.
I see that we are not supposed to refer to people as being drive-by-trolls and lacking in credibility when they spatter contrary comments full of logical fallacies and don’t bother with engaging when challenged – even when it is factually true. Oh, dear, well, that’s me told, then ain’t it?
Now, how long shall I spend worrying about it?
1…
2…
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Er, no, just can’t do it 😉
“…and this government – a Tory government no less – is perpetuating it…”
A what?
Okay, in name, anyway… I appreciate they are in breach of trades descriptions here.
…and while he’s set aside £2b for social care (which is probably coppers in the great scheme of things) he’s just given the relatively comfortably-off an IHT break in the form of the RNRB.
Actually, IHT is an abomination.
As an aside to all of this, I appreciate that the state is in debt. This is not my fault, nor is it yours. It is the fault of those politicians who spent money like it was going out of fashion.
If an individual presented themselves to a debt counsellor with this problem, they would be told to stop spending money on fripperies, not to go out and mug someone.
Unfortunately, politicians are thick. If they weren’t, they would grasp this basic principle; that when you have money problems, you reduce your spending. That does not mean you reduce the rate at which you borrow. It means you look closely at what you are spending money on and stop spending it on anything that is not strictly necessary. But, no, the cretins in government, of whichever stripe, prefer the mugging option.
So, yeah, thieving scum, the lot of them.