“Budget 2018: Self-employed face higher tax and NI payments”

Nov 8, 2018 | Tax

As usual, the biggest tax hikes in the Budget are kept well below the radar if they’re not aimed at nasty big companies or rich villains (ie anyone rich). Gordon Brown (kids etc) introduced something called IR35, to make companies take contractors onto the books as employees and so make both pay more tax. He couldn’t make it work but it’s back, and you can bet that a government still-more desperate for more tax  is going to make darn sure it does this time. Not good news for the armies of IT people who keep those big computer systems (sort of) working.

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“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

“HMRC scraps plans to tax pensions after death”

A couple of other Statement Highlights (in my world, anyway). A welcome ‘nothing happened’ on the treatment of pensions on death. They were never going to be liable to IHT (too complicated with trusts and trust law) but there was talk of making them income-taxable on the recipients at whatever age you die.

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

“Raising IHT threshold could cost government £6bn”

Well, the lesson of this week in politics must be to expect the unexpected. Or, alternative interpretation, to expect more of the same. The speculation on the future of Inheritance Tax has switched from abolition to a rise in the amount of wealth you can have before the 40% payment hits.