UK shelves abolition of Class 2 NICs

The government now says the move, planned for April 2018 then put off to 2019, will not happen ‘in this Parliament’ (ie. before spring 2022).

It says the move would be too hard on very low-ear­ning self-employed people as they would move from Class 2 (£2.95/week) to Class 3 (£14.65) – the same applies to working expats but they were not cited as part of the reasoning. The government says it will keep the issue under review.

The news was reported by some media as a ‘tax cut’ being ‘scrapped’ as certain UK-based self-employed people (not the lowest-earners) would have paid less due to it.