Osborne clobbers low paid freelancers and deals fresh blow to women born in the 1950s in Budget 2016

Budget 2016: Low paid freelancers are likely to see their NICs INCREASE five-fold from Class 2 £2.80 pw to Class 3 £14.10 pw

Women born in the 1950s have been truly gang-banged by George Osborne and his Tory cohort. While the rich saw their income triple since the 2008 crash, women who earn only 80 per cent of their male counterparts, who have had their pension age leap from age 60 to 66 and beyond, now find their lower cost Class 2 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) abolished with the cost jumping five-fold from £2.80 per week to £14.10 in Class 3 if your earnings are below £8K. This means an annual bill soaring from £147 to £733 if you wish to continue making voluntary payments to qualify for the state pension — 35 years of NICs.

So not only have they moved the goalposts and added 6 years, we can't afford to pay for them. And if we don't pay for them, we get an even lower pension than expected.

According to the government paper on abolition of Class 2 NICs (consultation closed):

In order to qualify for Class 4 NICs you have to be self-employed and must additionally pay Class 4 contributions once your profits reach a certain limit.

In 2016-17 Class 4 contributions are 9 per cent of taxable profits between £8,060 and £43,000. On profits over £43,000, Class 4 contributions are 2 per cent of profits.

Figure 2.B: The proposed Class 4 NICs structure

So what happens if your income falls below this threshold?

Those with profits between the SPT and Lower Profits Limit (LPL) (£8,060 in 2015/16) would no longer pay any NICs but still build entitlement to contributory benefits.

State Pension entitlement
Following these reforms, those with profits below the SPT [Small Profits Threshold — currently £5824] would need to make use of the existing provisions in the NICs system that serve to protect an individual’s State Pension record, in the same way as for employees who do not gain entitlement through Class 1 NICs. These are NI credits and Class 3 voluntary contributions.
While the Government recognises that the rate of Class 3 contributions is higher than Class 2 contributions, those for whom Class 3 may be prohibitively expensive may be eligible to claim means-tested benefits, which would protect their State Pension record via NI credits. [My italics]

Means tested. No savings above rock bottom.

Remember, this is not voluntary in the true sense. Fail to pay for those qualifying years and your state pension will feel it.

... those whose profits are below the SPT in only a small number of years may not need to pay Class 3 NICs to fill gaps. It is those with successive years of low profits who may see their State Pension entitlement affected if they did not pay Class 3 NICs. [My italics]

Read section 2 very carefully. Low cost Class 2 NICs has been abolished so you will have to pay the higher rate of Class 3 after 2018 if you do not qualify for Class 4 contributions with an income over around £8K.

Women born in the 1950s — who have not been given a reasonable time to make the transition — will lose around £36K in having to wait the extra six years for their pension. But that's not enough for the Tories and their "hard working people" mantra. We now have to pay thousands more in order to pay for those years to get as near to 35 years of contributions as possible.

Labour should be all over this like a rash. You may have the angels on your side but, as I learnt in the field, it's in the first moments of an issue breaking that the dominant narrative is formed. If you can't grasp that, stop being a dog in the manger and get someone on board who does. For all our sakes.

EDIT added 17 March 2016:
Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says:

The disingenuousness of the rhetoric on the personal allowance continues. The chancellor boasted yesterday that the increase in it “means another 1.3 million of the lowest paid workers taken out of tax altogether”. No it does not mean that. Taken out of income tax, yes. But not taken out of direct taxes on income. It remains the case that National Insurance Contributions, which are just another tax on earnings, start to be paid once earnings rise above about £8,000.

@MadamMiaow @AnnPettifor You'd think there was a conspiracy. And you may well be right

— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) March 21, 2016

Gallantry? Chivalry? Here's John Ward at The Slog

"... faced with what they thought in 2005 was approaching Armageddon, the Sir Humphrey clan DOUBLED the pension payout for the 600,000 top civil servants. The measure bypassed the Public Accounts Committee, which means that legally the pension awards were embezzled from the taxpayer. And the bypassing of the PAC means it was done with the complicity of elected Ministers. Consider the size of this heist: unfunded Civil Service pension liabilities today stand at £1.4trillion. 50% of the National Debt is down to the greed of 600,000 Sir Humphreys. Indirectly as a result of this, around 325,000 Waspi women have been left destitute."

How the establishment is stealing everything that isn't nailed down. Via @therealslog

Another Budget scandal exclusive from John Ward at The Slog. Why Big Corporate lobbying made Osborne more tearful than 500,000 WASPIs on the breadline

"Look at some of the other ‘priorities’ Osbollocks put ahead of pensioner destitution:
Freeze on fuel duty – £435m
Relief for oil companies – £265m
Freeze on alcohol duty – £85m
New rights to buy – £35m
Tax cuts to personal allowance & higher rates – £2bn
ISA savings allowance – £170m
Not investigating senior mgmnt tax fiddles on loans – £260m
Reduced corporation tax – £1.1bn (2020) ... the Government lie about 'having to wait a further 18 months for a State pension' is in fact SIX YEARS for women born in 1955 or later. That should be cut to one year from 60th birthday with immediate effect. For the 150,000 WASPIs involved in that, there is a 50% duplication with more women who have no partner, private pension or other means of support. That group should now get their pension immediately, backdated to 60th birthday. The remaining 175,000 WASPIs not in either group should have their delay halved, as a penalty levied on the Treasury for ignoring the Turner Commission. This would mean that all those who were, say, 60 in 2011 will get their pensions immediately, backdated to 2013."

July 2018: The rape of the National Insurance Fund A draft prepared by Tony Lynes as a basis for a National Pensioners Convention factsheet on the National Insurance Fund

The Guardian piles in a year after the event (18th March 2017) with New bombshell for self-employed. Still, better very late than never.

Socialist Economic Bulletin: Budget shows women bearing the heaviest burden of austerity.

Press finally catch on. Daily Mail 12.04.16: Women were told they'd win in the shake-up but thousands who gave up careers will get almost nothing

A few facts and figures challenging the Tory economic narrative

A few facts and figures to slash a path through the thicket of misinformation perpetrated by greedy swine who'd make the poor pay for their tax cuts.

Gleaned from The Sunday Times Rich List figures, the collective wealth of the UK's 1,000 richest rose 30 per cent in 2009 in wake of economic crisis. The combined wealth of the top 1000 rose by over £77bn to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list. The cost of benefit fraud is £1bn. Unclaimed benefits amount to £16.5bn. Estimated tax owed to us: £70bn. Sunday Times Rich List published 2010. The Daily Telegraph reports Britain's richest sees wealth rise by one third.

Another nugget I stored away ...

From 1997 to 2007 the average income of the top 1 per cent of UK earners increased from £187,989 to £301,325 – an increase of just over 60 per cent (income of the top 0.1 per cent almost doubled).

The increase in the tax contribution by the top 1 per cent, from 21 per cent in 1997 to 26 per cent now, means that their contribution is around 23 per cent higher (or 28.5 per cent if you go with the 27 per cent current figure), relative to what they were paying in 1997.

Either figure is far less than the increase of at least 60 per cent (and probably considerably more) in their incomes. The wealthiest are now paying substantially less toward our national upkeep than they were 15 years ago, relative to their wealth.

When is the penny going to drop that the bedroom tax is actually draining the public purse?

For the sake of argument, tax expert Richard Murphy takes the Tories' claim that the punitive bedroom tax saves £500mn and points out that this is less than the cost of shoving £200 per year at married couples via the new marriage allowance, estimated at some £600mn.

However, we all know — especially now that SPeye's on the case — that the bedroom tax is an expensive indulgence of Tory sadism and yields no saving. It would be cheaper if we bought them their very own Miss Whiplash sessions.

Cameron brands Jimmy Carr "immoral" over tax avoidance: who else is in the frame?

So Jimmy Carr has been exposed as a greedy hypocrite for lampooning Barclays (his own bank) for tax avoidance while taking advantage of a legal scheme that allows him to pay only one per cent tax himself. Amid the photos of his lovely £8.5m Hampstead home and his shiny Bentley (in which we all have a stake now), we might have lost sight of who it is who's looting the public purse on a grand scale. Vodafone and "Sir" Philip Green spring to mind, not forgetting David Harnett, the former head of HMRC, who allowed some flagrantly unfair deals to go through.

David Cameron certainly seems to think Carr is the worst miscreant when he labelled him "immoral", but is he the worst? Here's a graphic putting it in perspective.


Royalty sycophant Gary Barlow — who was awarded an OBE for mounting a show of staggering mediocrity for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations — may not have been one of the main players in terms of the £26m tax he avoids with Take That but he was strangely left off Cameron's Rogues Gallery of one, possibly because he is a Tory?

The Mirror reminds Cameron about some of the others who deserve a roll-call of dishonour.


While all eyes are on the showbiz star, the government sneaks in the abandonment of a promise to make their own tax affairs transparent — see what they did there? No word of closing the loopholes or clawing tax back from the richest, just a smirking pledge by Cameron to allow France's wealthy to take refuge in the UK when Hollande makes them pay a fairer rate of tax — he was elected, remember, while the Tories were not. We are recapitalising the banks, they are paying themselves bonuses out of our bail-outs, but that is not immoral. Worse, it's not illegal, either. Government's make the laws, so they could have cleared this up ages ago.

The original exposé came from the Murdoch press, so excuse me while I laugh my guts up. Carr is far from being the biggest target for our wrath. As Father Ted said holding up a tiny toy cow, "No, Dougall, this cow is small. That cow (a real one in a field) is big."

Liam Byrne & Labour: A Christmas Story

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed. 'Cause Pontius Cameron had kicked them out and put Mary and Joseph on workfare. "'Tis good. 'Tis the Lord's work," saith Liam Byrne and took all the flak for what the Romans did hoping to get himself a little governorship somewhere nearer Rome.

And so it came to pass that Jesus wept and grew into a fine young man, if a bit chippy. He overturned the money changers' counters in the Temple at Bankside but Fred the Shred escaped to spend more time with his millions. Jesus gazed upon Goldman Sachs, Lehmans and the rest and would have asked his Dad — his real Dad — to smite them a bit but he was an absentee father and off elsewhere leaving his son to sort it out while they made £35 billion profit when they were supposed to be bust. "'Tis a miracle", saith Jesus unto the Lord but was told to call back later as he was spending quality time with his other kids.

Some of Jesus's mates tried to camp out at the Temple, but whereas the money changers had been greeted with open arms and fat guts, the janitor set the dogs onto them.

Finding the priests at Labour Party HQ useless and hungover anyway, Jesus tried to chivvy up the troops but was told he was a troublemaker. "Look what you did to the Temple," they said. "Jesus Christ, you've made a right mess." "But it wasn't me," saith Jesus. "It was the money changers." "Of course it was you," saith Liam Byrne, again jonesing for a promotion. "You haven't got a bean and you and your skint pals are a drain on the state." Which was wicked for he was no slouch himself when it came to eating all the state-subsidised pies. "Besides, Dusky, you ain't from around here."

"'Tis another miracle", saith the Sunday Times when their Rich List revealed the creation of even more billionaires despite the country supposedly being on its uppers. "Ain't no miracle" saith Jesus, "and those uppers are pure Christian Louboutin – they've just lost their red souls ... and replaced them with our souls".

Jesus tried to explain to everyone that the riots were just the meek inheriting the earth as they were fed up with pie in the sky and wanted something a tad more substantial before they died, but was all but crucified for saying so. "Phew, that was close", he muttered. "No wonder they call me Twinkletoes because I am fleet of foot, unshod as they be except for these here Birkenstocks, and they will never catch me." Some say that Dad got wind of that message and set the hubris police onto him.

Before they stop'n'searched him on suspicion of possessing principles, he threw a couple of parties. At the big rave, he tried to prove you can't feed a mass of people on a tin of sardines, a Wonderloaf and a tin of Carling, but the scribes got the wrong end of the stick and said they'd all had a slap-up lunch. The scribes had, but at Chipping Norton, and they were all pissed by the time they arrived.

At his Labour Party farewell do, Jesus prophesied that someone would betray him before the cock crew, and they all trampled each other in the rush to prove Jesus right with Liam Byrne issuing several screeds applying for any top job that would have him.

The next day Jesus was run out of town but was such a nice guy that he told his Dad not to hold it against them. "They're arseholes, Dad. They haven't got a clue. They're not worf it." He was supposed to come back a bit later, but he took one look around and was off again, this time to move in with his Dad who'd promised to take him fishing.

FACT FILE: The collective wealth of the UK's 1,000 richest rose 30% in 2009 in wake of economic crisis. The combined wealth of the top 1000 rose by over £77bn to £333.5bn, biggest annual increase in 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list.

The cost of benefit fraud is £1bn. Unclaimed benefits amount to £16.5bn.

Estimated tax owed to us: £70bn

Ruling elite depravity Pt 4: tax whisteblower Osita Mba prosecuted while Hartnett gets pay-off

Here's another case that goes on the shitlist I'm calling "How depraved is out ruling elite?"

You'd think, wouldn't you, that in these times of austerity, cuts and sharing the pain in our Big Society, that anyone who helped stem the flow of wealth away from the public purse and into greedy corporate maws would be held up as an example to us all. Maybe even a sign that the government is getting something right. But, no. Perverse and self-serving, the system is rigged so that the more outrageous your economic misdemeanour, the more you are rewarded.

Osita Mba is a name that should go down in history as a rare outbreak of courage and integrity in these brutish times. He is the solicitor at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs department (HMRC) who blew the whistle on tax supremo David Hartnett's curious habit of letting corporations off of their huge tax bills: Goldman Sachs £10mn interest and an eye-watering and possibly illegal £1bn for Vodafone. Denying for ages that dinners with corporate bigwigs had greased his podgy palms, Hartnett has finally decided to bugger off but not without a £1.7 million pension fund of our money, and not without setting off a spite-bomb with a slow fuse for the heroic lawyer without whom Hartnett would have still been indulging his generosity for the rich.

When you hear Frances Maude (pension £42,000 pa) and others complaining about Public sector pensions (average: £7,000 pa), just remember this:

Hartnett's package will anger critics. At the most recent valuation, in March 2011, his pension pot was worth £1.7m. He is expected to receive an annual payout of up to £80,000 and a lump sum on retirement of one year's salary, which is recorded as £160-165,000.

In an act that some might suspect of malice, Hartnett has set in motion a prosecution of Osita which may result in his sacking or, worse, his prosecution.

Personally, I'd rather see this fate directed at the hospitality-loving Hartnett rather than Osita, who should be garlanded with flowers and have rose petals strewn at his feet by dancing girls.

If Osita is punished I am personally going to riot.

You can sign a petition here.

UK Uncut's response to resignation of "Whitehall's most 'wined and dined' civil servant" here.

Big society: US workers' share plummets

US workers' share of national income plummets to record low while the richest one per cent explodes. Wonder how Britain compares in the age of the Big Society.

US firefighters allow house to burn for non-payment of fee

This is the future if the Tea Party and their UK equivalents get their own way.

Shocking and barking mad.

Hat tip to Claire M

US firefighters allow house to burn for non-payment of fee

This is the future if the Tea Party and their UK equivalents get their own way.

Shocking and barking mad.

Hat tip to Claire M

Super-rich hang onto their wealth, shock horror: Bill Gates in China

Wonderful. The liberal British media promote individual largesse over state organisation of wealth distribution with The Guardian taking a swipe at the Chinese for stinginess.

How unlike the home life of our own dear plutos!

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet's Chateau Lafitte party in Beijing should have seen China's billionaires playing at philanthropy in a 12-step programme of conscience-salving when we would have all been better-off had everyone paid proper taxes in the first place. Some might even venture to ask how anyone — not just Chinese people in a 'communist' state — gets to suck up so much money in the first place.

The Guardian sniffs that China's rich don't want to play the game as several were washing their hair last night when they should have been paying obeisance at the Gates altar. Never mind that: as some sniped back, in America giving to charidee is a way to get out of paying taxes.

Upholding die alte scheisse for dear life, the Guardian gives this pertinent observation its own spin:

"Defensive tycoons retort that giving should be a private choice and dismiss American philanthropy as little more than a tax-dodge."

I like that "defensive".

It seems the liberals' solution to our economic woes is for business people to amass personal fortunes and hand it out according to whim. So you get, f'rinstance, a situation where Philip Green (Top Shop, Debenhams, Kate Moss) is able to write himself a cheque for a billion quid, pay no tax (because his missus lives in Monaco), chuck a few crumbs at good causes and find himself invited into Cameron's swag team where he can advise on cuts for the rest of us.

Both the Guardian and the BBC cite favourably the example of Chen Guangbiao, the 42-year-old recycling magnate who is happy to see his brother and sister working for less than three hundred bucks a month as a dishwasher and security guard because they were useless with some dosh he once gave them. Chen attended the party and is angry that many of his fellow squillionares failed to show. He says, "This makes me so mad. How did we get so rich? We've had favourable economic policies and China's working class helped us get there. I think we need to repay society,"

His own mother suckled starving neighbours' kids and two of his siblings died of starvation, but he is now the model for how the planet's resources should be hoovered up by the new super-rich to do with what they want. He says he'll be leaving the lot to charity when he dies. How noble and self-sacrificing! All he's done is trash the notion of family as the repository of hereditary wealth which, under Gates's new rules, gets passed on to non-democratic organisations to dispose of after they've paid for nice offices, wages, etc. (See Bono's charitable enterprise.)

I always liked that analogy of trickle-down as being the sparrows gathered as the horse's rear end, waiting to pick remaining undigested grain from its droppings: die alte scheisse, indeed.

But on a happier note ... rejoice! For now, with China one of the major beneficiaries of the Iraq war (well done, Dubya and Tone), the Sino-Russo oil pipeline is now open for biz. So the West can just f-f-f-fade away.

Super-rich hang onto their wealth, shock horror: Bill Gates in China

Wonderful. The liberal British media promote individual largesse over state organisation of wealth distribution with The Guardian taking a swipe at the Chinese for stinginess.

How unlike the home life of our own dear plutos!

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet's Chateau Lafitte party in Beijing should have seen China's billionaires playing at philanthropy in a 12-step programme of conscience-salving when we would have all been better-off had everyone paid proper taxes in the first place. Some might even venture to ask how anyone — not just Chinese people in a 'communist' state — gets to suck up so much money in the first place.

The Guardian sniffs that China's rich don't want to play the game as several were washing their hair last night when they should have been paying obeisance at the Gates altar. Never mind that: as some sniped back, in America giving to charidee is a way to get out of paying taxes.

Upholding die alte scheisse for dear life, the Guardian gives this pertinent observation its own spin:

"Defensive tycoons retort that giving should be a private choice and dismiss American philanthropy as little more than a tax-dodge."

I like that "defensive".

It seems the liberals' solution to our economic woes is for business people to amass personal fortunes and hand it out according to whim. So you get, f'rinstance, a situation where Philip Green (Top Shop, Debenhams, Kate Moss) is able to write himself a cheque for a billion quid, pay no tax (because his missus lives in Monaco), chuck a few crumbs at good causes and find himself invited into Cameron's swag team where he can advise on cuts for the rest of us.

Both the Guardian and the BBC cite favourably the example of Chen Guangbiao, the 42-year-old recycling magnate who is happy to see his brother and sister working for less than three hundred bucks a month as a dishwasher and security guard because they were useless with some dosh he once gave them. Chen attended the party and is angry that many of his fellow squillionares failed to show. He says, "This makes me so mad. How did we get so rich? We've had favourable economic policies and China's working class helped us get there. I think we need to repay society,"

His own mother suckled starving neighbours' kids and two of his siblings died of starvation, but he is now the model for how the planet's resources should be hoovered up by the new super-rich to do with what they want. He says he'll be leaving the lot to charity when he dies. How noble and self-sacrificing! All he's done is trash the notion of family as the repository of hereditary wealth which, under Gates's new rules, gets passed on to non-democratic organisations to dispose of after they've paid for nice offices, wages, etc. (See Bono's charitable enterprise.)

I always liked that analogy of trickle-down as being the sparrows gathered as the horse's rear end, waiting to pick remaining undigested grain from its droppings: die alte scheisse, indeed.

But on a happier note ... rejoice! For now, with China one of the major beneficiaries of the Iraq war (well done, Dubya and Tone), the Sino-Russo oil pipeline is now open for biz. So the West can just f-f-f-fade away.

Tory Ashcroft British tax avoidance "legal"

What more to add to Johann Hari's piece on the Tory donor, billionaire "Lord" Michael Ashcroft and his refusal to pay British taxes?

David Cameron and William Hague have covered up for him despite his "clear and unequivocal assurance" he would become a "permanent" resident in Britain ten years ago. Because of their obfuscation he has succeeded in avoiding paying £127 million in taxes. How many patients would that care for under the ailing NHS? How many children would that educate? How many immigrants — actually a net gain for the country — would that look after?

Of Cameron, Hari writes:

Made to pick between the national interests of the British people and the sectional interests of the super-rich, he choose the over-class – and we should assume he would do the same in Downing Street.

But of the bigger underlying tax scandal, he points out:

... under both Labour and Conservative governments, this revolting behaviour is perfectly legal. The bottom 99 per cent of us pay our taxes on time and in full – while the richest have been allowed to get away with this insult. Ashcroft is not alone. The invaluable Tax Justice Network has calculated that rich individuals "avoid" £13bn a year and rich corporations £12bn. (Indeed, a third of Britain's top 700 companies haven't paid any tax at all.) That's enough to double the education budget – or to pay off Britain's entire deficit in seven years without a single dent in public spending. ... Tax exiles want all the benefits of an advanced society, without paying for it to keep going. There's a technical definition for this in the natural sciences: a parasite. ... We are constantly being told by a chorus of conservatives that the financial crisis caused by their market fundamentalism can only be solved by slashing back spending. But this is unnecessary if only the overclass start to pay their taxes.

A hung Parliament in 2010? Yes, they should be.

Tory Ashcroft British tax avoidance "legal"

What more to add to Johann Hari's piece on the Tory donor, billionaire "Lord" Michael Ashcroft and his refusal to pay British taxes?

David Cameron and William Hague have covered up for him despite his "clear and unequivocal assurance" he would become a "permanent" resident in Britain ten years ago. Because of their obfuscation he has succeeded in avoiding paying £127 million in taxes. How many patients would that care for under the ailing NHS? How many children would that educate? How many immigrants — actually a net gain for the country — would that look after?

Of Cameron, Hari writes:

Made to pick between the national interests of the British people and the sectional interests of the super-rich, he choose the over-class – and we should assume he would do the same in Downing Street.

But of the bigger underlying tax scandal, he points out:

... under both Labour and Conservative governments, this revolting behaviour is perfectly legal. The bottom 99 per cent of us pay our taxes on time and in full – while the richest have been allowed to get away with this insult. Ashcroft is not alone. The invaluable Tax Justice Network has calculated that rich individuals "avoid" £13bn a year and rich corporations £12bn. (Indeed, a third of Britain's top 700 companies haven't paid any tax at all.) That's enough to double the education budget – or to pay off Britain's entire deficit in seven years without a single dent in public spending. ... Tax exiles want all the benefits of an advanced society, without paying for it to keep going. There's a technical definition for this in the natural sciences: a parasite. ... We are constantly being told by a chorus of conservatives that the financial crisis caused by their market fundamentalism can only be solved by slashing back spending. But this is unnecessary if only the overclass start to pay their taxes.

A hung Parliament in 2010? Yes, they should be.