A GB News viewer has told Rishi Sunak he will “not get a penny off me” as national insurance contributions go up today.
Sue Ashcombe-Hurt joined Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster to explain what impact the tax increase would have on her, labelling the chancellor’s plan as “the wrong thing to do”.
From today, national insurance contributions will increase by 1.25 percentage points, dropping back to the 2021-22 level in April 2023.
The Conservative Party 2019 election manifesto, which helped Boris Johnson deliver a landslide majority, pledged “not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT”.
The Tory administration has since increased the tax burden to its highest point in 70 years.
Speaking on GB News, Ashcombe-Hurt said it is “totally the wrong thing to do. If you want to expand your income for the treasury, you don’t raise taxes, you lower them.”
She added: “If you want to get more jobs in the economy, you don’t raise taxes, you lower them.
“It’s going to stop employers employing people for jobs because it just makes it far more expensive.”
Isabel asked: “You work for yourself, so how will this impact you directly? From today, are you making changes to your lifestyle as a result of this?”
“It’s not going to affect me,” Sue insisted. “He’s [Sunak] not going to get a penny off me.
“Because I know, I’ve worked with finance all my life, so I know how much I can earn without paying any National Insurance, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
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