The Prime Minister has suggested that cuts working age benefits could pave the way for scrapping national insurance as part of the Conservative Party offer for voters.
Rishi Sunak said that โsignificant processโ may be made to eliminate the tax in the next parliament if the Tories win the upcoming general election.
The Prime Minister set out plans to make cuts to working age benefits โto make sure that we can sustainably keep cutting taxes,โ he said in an interview with the Sunday Times.
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Sunak has insisted that he is committed to scrapping the โunnecessarily complexโ system of national insurance as well as income tax.
The Prime Minister told the Sunday Times, โAll that money ultimately goes into the same pot to fund public services.
โSo โฆ our long-term ambition is to end that unfairness, to keep cutting NICs until itโs gone, because that is the best way to reward hard work, simplify the tax system, and build the kind of society that I think is right.โ
Sunak added, โWeโve cut NICs by a third in two events over six months. So that demonstrates we are delivering and we can go further, though itโs important that we stick to the plan and then we can make significant progress towards that goal in the next parliament.โ
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), cutting the welfare bill which is soon to rise from ยฃ261.5 billion 2022/23 to ยฃ360.1 billion in 2028/29 is key.
Sunak said, โWe now have almost 2.5 million working-age people who have been signed off as unfit to work or even look for work or think about working and I donโt think thatโs right.
โWe now sign off three times as many people to be out of work than we did a decade ago. That just doesnโt strike me as a system thatโs working properly.โ
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