Employers NI raise confirmed by BBC?

subjecttocontract

This thread sounds like political debate to me. It says it should be avoided at the top of the page. Perhaps its now allowed a few days before the budget. What's going on ?

Martico

It's Sunday - the thread'll be gone by tomorrow

masonic

subjecttocontract said:

This thread sounds like political debate to me. It says it should be avoided at the top of the page. Perhaps its now allowed a few days before the budget. What's going on ?

The forum team don't work weekends.

hallmark

I wonder if part of the agenda here is to curb wage inflation.  A 2% increase on employers NI will likely mean a percentage or so off of wage increases.  That would be very welcome to the Govt as wage inflation is a main driver behind overall inflation currently, and also currently the most expensive element of the triple lock.

On the subject of the triple lock, I'm surprised nobody has yet suggested making it the average, as opposed to the highest, of the three measures.  That wouldn't be unreasonable, it would mean some years pensioners fare better than workers and some years workers fare better.

It'd also be a neat way out of the trap every party is now in (scrapping it has become too politically dangerous for most of them to contemplate).  They could keep the name but change the definition.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

hallmark said:

I wonder if part of the agenda here is to curb wage inflation.  A 2% increase on employers NI will likely mean a percentage or so off of wage increases.  That would be very welcome to the Govt as wage inflation is a main driver behind overall inflation currently, and also currently the most expensive element of the triple lock.

On the subject of the triple lock, I'm surprised nobody has yet suggested making it the average, as opposed to the highest, of the three measures.  That wouldn't be unreasonable, it would mean some years pensioners fare better than workers and some years workers fare better.

It'd also be a neat way out of the trap every party is now in (scrapping it has become too politically dangerous for most of them to contemplate).  They could keep the name but change the definition.

Quite like that idea, nothing will ever please everyone but that doesn't seem too bad a solution.

And has the small bonus of fairly easily being checked backwards to see how it would have worked in reality in recent years compared to the current best of the three position.

Albermarle

intalex said:

friolento said:

intalex said:

...although Reeves is not likely to introduce the levy to employers' pensions contributions.

This is surprising... objectively, this would be a more justifiable change, but optically, a straight increase to employers' NI rate may be perceived more favourably by "working people"... even if many employers will pass on these costs to employees either way...

The costs would almost certainly be passed on, either to employees or to customers, or both. I have a friend who owns a shop and employs two staff. The plan is that prices in the shop will rise by between 5% and 10% to fund any employer NI increase. Nice contribution to inflation 😉

Easier said than done, employee and customer retention will be affected if the costs are bluntly passed on... some tough choices undoubtedly...

I personally think that introduction of employers NI on employers pension contributions would be much better than simply raising the employers NI rate, because:
1. it doesn't make sense why employers should earn a "freebie" 13.8% saving from employees trying to save just 2% by way of more contributions through salary sacrifice (vs net pay / relief at source), especially those employers who do not share or pass on this "freebie" to the employees
2. where employers are passing on the saving to employees (directly into employee pension or indirectly as matching benefit), revocation of this benefit will hardly be a deal breaker for employees as it'll be obvious what led to it, and in the bigger picture, income tax reliefs will still remain as the prevailing benefit

It is a good couple of points, However many employers do not use salary sacrifice at all, so they would be hit directly by NI on their pension contributions and potentially be incentivised to reduce them to the minimum. 

Altior

subjecttocontract said:

This thread sounds like political debate to me. It says it should be avoided at the top of the page. Perhaps its now allowed a few days before the budget. What's going on ?

Ironically, there's nothing in the rules explicitly barring political debate that I can see. Even though the banner implies there is!

It's also pretty absurd to have a financial/money discussion forum, with specific pages for pensions, mortgages, benefits, tax cutting, saving & investing et al, pretty much the narrative has been set up for the whole country to speculate about the new government's upcoming budget after getting a political mandate to deliver it. But, the people behind the forum want to prevent said speculation, when it is arguably, at least in part, what the forum is for. Discussion of financial matters.

I cannot recall this stance for previous budgets. What's changed, the mind boggles.

It would be even more absurd if tptb try to snuff out discussion about the actual changes, after the months of conjecture about exactly what they will be. 

artyboy

Economic debate, namely how to adjust to and manage any changes or new rules, is fine and perfectly MSE... political debate, which is more around slagging off the current party in power, Tories wouldn't have been any better/worse, etc etc... that's where the line is drawn.

Altior

artyboy said:

Economic debate, namely how to adjust to and manage any changes or new rules, is fine and perfectly MSE... political debate, which is more around slagging off the current party in power, Tories wouldn't have been any better/worse, etc etc... that's where the line is drawn.

We're thankful there was no discussion around the Kwasi Kwarting budget. Nobody brings it up now, at least ! Good to hear from a moderator though. 

artyboy

Altior said:

artyboy said:

Economic debate, namely how to adjust to and manage any changes or new rules, is fine and perfectly MSE... political debate, which is more around slagging off the current party in power, Tories wouldn't have been any better/worse, etc etc... that's where the line is drawn.

We're thankful there was no discussion around the Kwasi Kwarting budget. Nobody brings it up now, at least ! Good to hear from a moderator though. 

The chances of any moderator weighing in here is zero, you just have to hang around to *know* when the line has been crossed...