Consultation outcome

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

This consultation has concluded

Download the full outcome

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.


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
to

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

Published 9 December 2015
Last updated 11 December 2018 + show all updates
  1. Updated as Class 2 NICs are no longer being abolished on 6 April 2019.

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

  3. Response document published.

  4. updated to note other formats available on request

  5. First published.