The NI changes are going to cost my organisation £1000 per employee

[flashbac]

The NI changes are going to cost my organisation on average £1000 per employee, The lowering of the threshold alone is going to cost around £600 extra per employee.

We are heavily regulated with fixed income. We're a not for profit. Our customers expectations are increasing. We are now most likely going to have to somehow reduce our headcount now, and payrises for April are going to be off the table.

Just shaking my head really. Our employees don't deserve this. Hard to see how this isn't a tax on jobs.

The lowering of the threshold also means employers have to pay for more workers, because part time salaries are now dragged into it.

A lot of people reading this won't care. All I can say is this NI increase will also affect you. just think about Local authorities, childcare providers and other services. Do you think it won't affect your Councils services/tax bills, to give one example?

(I'm not a Tory bot btw, before anyone starts accusing me of being one. I voted Remain, don't support the Tories at all, can't stand Boris and his cronies.)

I work for a charity and am very worried. We are still recovering from lockdown and CoL has massively reduced donations. I think there will be redundancies.

Someone upthread posted a link to an open letter created by the NCVO. Might be worth signing?

I don't disagree with a raised minimum wage, increased housing availability but I do think the NHS and blanket increase in taxes has to be considered.

In what way do you think taxes/NHS need to be considered?

The official definition of a small business is up to 49 employees, and according to Gov stats there are 1.4 million such businesses - so plenty of them, many of whom will be concerned! They employ c8 million people, which represents a good number of 'working people'.

Yep, the Federation of Small Business statistics are quite enlightening as to just how many people are employed by the smallest of businesses - the figures are surprisingly high.

Yep. Small businesses are the backbone of the country.

And yet both Labour and Tories absolutely hate them.

Raise income tax across the board to get nearer to the tax burden the rest of Europe has (around 40-45% compared with ours hovering, I believe, around 30-35%).
NHS - largest employer in Europe, I believe, and one of the largest in the world. Needs to start charging - many socialist countries did have charges attached to visits, with a cap for chronic diseases.

NHS cannot be fully funded by the state.

This from the Guardian:
"The OBR says 80% of the rise will be passed on to workers in lower wage increases and 20% in higher prices. So workers and consumers lose..."

This. We need to start charging properly, not just hoping those who can afford it will go privately.

A friend of mine is a private GP and is booked out for weeks.

Yes, because if the government raises the NMW and employers NI, without productivity being increased, the only way employers can fund those rises in staff costs, is by increasing their prices!

Meanwhile the poor get poorer with the freeze in housing benefits and the refusal to lift the two child benefit cap, so they will be spending even less on goods.

There will be more bed blocking in the NHS, as care homes close down, unable to afford these unfunded rises in the costs of employing the care staff. It’s like I heard a community care lawyer say once:

”Local authorities said to care homes, we are not going to fund trips out for residents. So the residents, who were on full fat milk, are now on semi skimmed milk. Then the local authorities say, we are not going to fund activities in the home. The residents are now on skimmed milk. The local authorities keep cutting their funding, until the residents are on water!”

When MIL was discharged from the NHS, to a care home, rated inadequate, we felt like we were wandering round on the Marie Celeste, trying to find the care staff. We were told staffing was the bare minimum to comply with the law. How could the care home owners cut that any more?

Well, thats always been the case, all those MW rises have to be funded.

Employers also got a significant tax cut in November 2023, they didn't pass that on in the form of price cuts did they.

Housing benefits freeze has been unfrozen, after many years of freezes by the Tories.

the budget for NHS and primary services hasn't even been set yet and the issues with care etc all happened under the Cons..... its labours job to try and fix it and that means tax rises.

Employers also got a significant tax cut in November 2023, they didn't pass that on in the form of price cuts did they.

They were hit by the cost of living crisis too! People go into business in the hope of making a living from it - when their profits are eaten up by rises in the costs like rent, energy, food (say hospitality), they are not going to accept working for nothing themselves! Thats why pubs, nurseries, restaurants, care homes, independent shops etc are closing! Walk down high streets and see how many empty premises there are, ignoring the charity shops, coffee shops, hairdressers and estate agents.

We can’t have an economy based on coffee shops!

Shops are closing down because people are buying online. Pubs are shutting because people are drinking at home or not at all. I think it would happen regardless of the costs of living.

Small shops have been closing ever since the 1970s with the advent of chain stores, supermarkets, etc. The rot set in LONG before the internet. I remember people bemoaning the "identikit" high street of nothing but chain stores back in the 90s. Our town lost it's Marks & Spencer and Woolworths in the 90s. Coincided with a couple of huge out of town supermarkets opening up on the outskirts. High Street was just about muddling on and then the council killed it stone dead with a one way system, traffic calming and pedestrianisation in the early noughties. I agree the the internet is "Now" damaging what's left of the high street, but the reality was that in so many places it was only clinging on to life on life support due to supermarkets, retail parks and car-hating councils absolutely wrecking what we used to have.

The reality is that governments of both colours hate small businesses - Labour want everything state controlled, Tories want all the businesses owned by millionaires, billionaires and hedge funds.

It's the same with pubs. Yes, they're closing now, but they've also been closing for a couple of decades or more. Cheap booze from supermarkets is part of it, but so has been the enormous increases in costs they've faced, from rent, business rates, wages, utilities, etc - it's been never ending for a couple of decades or more. Lots fell by the wayside years ago. Those that have survived are now struggling. The pub industry is dominated by the big brewers who not only control the booze, they own the buildings and can dictate the rent, terms of business, what products are sold, etc. - again, "big business" in control.

Today's Sunday Times has a heart-felt article by the CEO of small brewery Timothy Taylor explaining exactly why small businesses fear Government. I've linked it, but it's behind the paywall so may not succeed.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/my-brewery-timothy-taylors-succeeds-despite-whitehall-not-because-of-it-qr7zq98jc

Small shops have been closing down for decades because:

• their competitors moved online and they didn't
• they didn't recognise that online shopping meant that the shop three towns/counties/countries over was now their competitor
• they left it to late to plan succession so when it comes time to retire there's no one willing or able to take on the business, the business is at the wrong stage to sell when they decide to sell, or they've allowed themselves to become too central to the business and can't be replaced, or they have wildly over-optimistic expectations of what the business is worth (due to all of the preceding).

New small shops struggle to get started principally due to the cost of failure. It's a huge deterrent. But it's something that local authorities can help with, with the right funding initiatives.

the budget for NHS and primary services hasn't even been set yet and the issues with care etc all happened under the Cons..... its labours job to try and fix it and that means tax rises.

Labour haven't even attempted to address social care - all they have done is stab the industry in the back yet again!

When nurseries are closing, because they can't make it pay and women can't get childcare, or can't afford the increases in fees to cover the staff costs, I have no doubt women, who want to work, will be moaning. When care homes and domiciliary agencies close and women get called upon, to care for their elderly relatives or leave them to die of neglect, I dare say they will be moaning again.

Increasing funding for the NHS helps get people on waiting lists back to work. What has Labour done to help those on benefits; those in need of care at either end of the age spectrum and the most vulnerable? Nothing - they have been abandoned, in favour of the working population. Its an extension of the Conservative's right wing policies all along.

As I have posted previously, I am all in favour of progressive tax rises on income tax, corporation tax and CGT. I imagine some people with SIPPS will give them up for annuities, so no IHT or income tax will be payable by their heirs. (As DH's IFA advised him to do, the day after the budget last week).

FFs they ve been in for 4 months, do you expect miracles??? they have to go steady or they'll upset the markets... and we don't want that....

The changes on NI kick in next April, there is plenty of time to fine tune these changes for the care sector.

Families already cannot get the childcare they should be getting, its all been a Tory trick.

My IFA has told me not to do anything atm, silly to react so quickly. Annuities really aren't a great way to pass on wealth, they can even stop when you die, i suspect i will take more out, gift to my child instead.

Martin Lewis said small businesses would be exempt …

No government ever has put small businesses first and top in their planning. No Tory nor Labour government even thinks of SMEs. They drool at the big chiefs of big companies over smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, and do their bidding, but the SMEs that employ 70% of the UK's workforce just get HMRC directives, that usually cost lots and require hundreds of hours work.

Nail on the head. Both parties absolutely hate small businesses.

They don't hate them, they are an easy target, just as PAYE are, don't have the tax guru's to defend them... easy to pick.

FFs they ve been in for 4 months, do you expect miracles??? they have to go steady or they'll upset the markets... and we don't want that....

No, but I don’t expect rank stupidity either.