PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
National Insurance Contributions: Older Workers (22 October 2018)

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the revenue to be accrued to the public purse of people of official retirement age paying National Insurance when in work at (a) the standard and (b) a reduced rate.

Asked by:
Ian Murray (Labour)

The “Estimated costs of principal tax reliefs” publication, sets out an estimate of the cost of the exemption of those over State pension age from paying National Insurance. It is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs

According to this publication it is estimated that the cost of this exemption is around £1.1bn in 2017-18. The estimates do not allow for any behavioural changes as a result of the reliefs. In practice if a relief was withdrawn, taxpayers’ behaviour would often alter so that the actual yield would be very different from, and often smaller than, that shown in the tables.

Answered by:
Sir Mel Stride (Conservative)
25 October 2018