National Insurance Cut and Fraud Refunds

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

National Insurance will be cut for millions workers from today. It'll be cut from 12% to 10% - the lowest main rate for more than twenty years. The government says this cut will save an employee on average earnings around £450 a year. However, some experts including the Office for Budget Responsibility say that gain is far less than the cost of freezing personal tax allowances from 2021 while wages rose. What will it mean for you?

A new set of regulations designed to help victims of fraud should see up to 90% of them get the money stolen from them refunded by their banks. That's according to Chris Hemsley, who runs the Payment Systems Regulator. He says he hopes the change will encourage the industry to do even more to stop fraud from happening in the first place.

HM Revenue and Customs says it will only take what it calls 'priority calls' on its Self Assessment helpline ahead of the 31st January tax deadline - sending everyone else to its online services. How will that work in practice?

And what parents of small children need to do to apply for the new 15 hours of free childcare.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporters: Dan Whitworth, Sandra Hardial and Eimear Devlin Editor: Jess Quayle

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 6th January 2024)

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:07.0	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.0	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:14.0	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for
0:21.7	Lucan. It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. I'm Alex Fontunzelman. This is
0:27.8	the Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Moneybox podcast.
0:39.5	From October, new rules will make banks reimburse customers
0:42.7	whose money is stolen by fraud.
0:45.2	Parents in England, with children who are two years old,
0:47.9	can now apply for free childcare starting in April.
0:51.4	And HMRC closes its self-assessment helpline
0:54.1	for all but priority calls,
0:56.3	sending other callers online. But first, national insurance is a taxed millions of working-age
1:02.2	people pay on their wages. And from today, the main rate of tax is cut from 12% to 10%, the lowest
1:09.6	for more than 20 years.
1:11.3	The government says this cut will save an employee on average earnings
1:14.7	around £450 a year.
1:17.7	However, some experts, including its own Office for Budget Responsibility,
1:22.3	say the gain for most will be less than the extra tax due
1:25.5	because tax-free allowances have been frozen
1:28.9	while wages have gone up.
	...

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