The Telegraph are asking whether we might see the end of National Insurance in the near future to which we can only say "Yes please"! As we've reiterated countless times National Insurance is simply another tax on earnings and only serves to mislead and confuse people on the subject of the tax burden.
We heard very similar rumours on the subject last year but it was eventually decided that there would be too many problems with the current IT system, so we can only hope that this time the Chancellor actually follows through.
If so it would be the end of a long and sustained campaign from the TPA which has included reports, campaigning and videos:
- Abolish National Insurance was published in 2011, which sets out exactly how Income Tax and National Insurance could be merged.
- The Single Income Tax was published in May 2012, which set out a comprehensive reform of the UK tax system through a Single Income Tax and a key component of this was abolishing National Insurance.
- How to abolish National Insurance was published in November 2012, which went into further detail as to how it could be abolished as part of a move towards a Single Income Tax. The paper set out the detail of how to bring in the reform which ensuring groups such as pensioners were protected from paying any more tax.
- The Giant Payslip was launched in March 2013, illustrating how the merging National Insurance could simplify people's payslips by making the deductions more transparent.
- What are you really paying? video was launched in May 2013, to illustrate the fact that National Insurance is really just another form of Income Tax.
And of course, Twitter always plays a part: