Last week we covered income tax and this week I want to finish that off by talking about the other income tax which masquerades as something else.

National Insurance. Yes, national insurance is not really insurance at all, it's just another tax, but this one is at least about qualifying you for various benefits, not least the state pension.

As ever though there's some new ones to how it all works, so let's put five minutes on the clock

down here.

Say a quick thank you to my friends at 7 Investment Management for continuing to sponsor the show

and let's crack on. So who pays national insurance and how much do they pay?

This is where I'm going to need to scooch over a bit and bring in a graphic.

So I'll do that now.

Just like last week, there are various thresholds

that you need to understand.

We're going to deal with employees first,

then self-employed people, and then finally, employers. So if we're talking about

employees first the first threshold is the lower earnings limit and for the

2019-20 tax year that limit is 512 pounds per month. So if you earn less than this you

get no national insurance benefits at all. I'll get into what those benefits are

a little bit later on.

Above that then we have the primary threshold,

which this year is 719 pounds per month.

Now if you earn between the lower earnings limit and the primary threshold,

you get the benefits of paying national insurance without actually paying national insurance.

To put it another way, you pay national insurance at 0%. Not sure

whether that's really helpful or not. So next we have the upper earnings limit which

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