Consultation outcome

Consultation on abolishing Class 2 National Insurance and introducing a contributory benefit test to Class 4 National Insurance for the self-employed

• From: HM Treasury, HM Revenue & Customs and Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 9 December 2015
• Last updated: 11 December 2018 — See all updates

This was published under the 2015 to 2016 Cameron Conservative government

This consultation has concluded

Read the full outcome

Abolishing Class 2 and reforming Class 4 National Insurance contributions: response to the consultation

Ref: ISBN 978-1-911375-41-8, PU2010

PDF, 624 KB, 32 pages

Detail of outcome

The government consulted between December 2015 and February 2016 on reforming self-employed NICs to protect access to the new State Pension and working age contributory benefits – this response document sets out how the government intends to proceed.

Read the draft legislation and tax information and impact note.

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Original consultation

Summary

This is a consultation on the abolition of Class 2 National Insurance, and on introducing a new contributory benefit test for the self-employed into Class 4 National Insurance.

This consultation ran from
1pm on 9 December 2015 to 11:45pm on 24 February 2016

Consultation description

At the 2015 Summer Budget the government confirmed that it planned to abolish Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) and reform Class 4 NICs to introduce a new contributory benefit test.

This consultation explores how a reformed self-employed NICs system could confer benefit entitlement and the policy choices that the government will consider in designing the new contributory benefit tests.

The government is seeking views from self-employed people, agents who act on the behalf of self-employed people and bodies that represent self-employed people. The government particularly welcomes responses from those who pay a special rate of Class 2 – Share Fishermen and Volunteer Development Workers – and other special groups such as Examiners and Ministers of Religion.

The deadline for responses is Wednesday 24th February 2016. When responding, please state whether you are doing so as an individual or on behalf of an organisation. The government is open to meeting with stakeholder groups during the consultation period.

This consultation is available as a PDF file on request.

Documents

The abolition of Class 2 National Insurance: Introducing a benefit test into Class 4 National Insurance for the self-employed

HTML

Published 9 December 2015
Last updated 11 December 2018 + show all updates

1. 11 December 2018

   Updated as Class 2 NICs are no longer being abolished on 6 April 2019.

2. 7 November 2017

   Updated detail of outcome section with information about the delay to the abolition of Class 2 NICs.

3. 5 December 2016

   Response document published.

4. 11 December 2015

   updated to note other formats available on request

5. 9 December 2015

   First published.