Cut employers' NI payments, says Digby Jones
Lord Digby Jones is set to urge the government to abolish National Insurance contributions from employers at an event in Warwickshire next month.
Lord Jones, former minister of trade and industry and director general of the Confederation of British Industry, will speak at the tenth Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce Economic Conference in September.
He said: "I urge the government to say that National Insurance contributions for employers will be abolished.
"It is the only tax in Britain that taxes jobs. With every other tax, you only pay if you are in receipt of a wage. If you are making money then you pay some over. As a business, you only pay Corporation Tax if you are making money.
"With National Insurance for employers, you can have a loss making business which employs people and you are taxed for doing so. That is mad."
But he will tell businesses at the conference on 16 September that he is not overly confident about the current plan for recovery.
"I don’t think the government get it," he said. "I don’t think they understand it. They would rather have a headline about a lower rate of tax than actually getting to the sharp end and really helping businesses employ people.
"And that is not because they have not been in business; it is because they have done nothing with their lives outside politics."
