Extend NI holiday to all SMEs, says advisor

A Cumbria business advisor is calling on the Chancellor to use this month’s Budget to offer more support to established businesses, rather than focusing solely on start-ups.
Colin Johnson, a director at Moore and Smalley Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors in Kendal, says existing businesses need to be given greater encouragement to go out and create jobs.

He believes that a holiday on employer National Insurance contributions for start-up firms, announced in last year’s Budget, should be extended to cover smaller owner-managed businesses.

He said: “While encouraging start-ups is important, the businesses that are already here hold the key to driving growth in the economy and owner managers need to feel comfortable enough about the future to begin making investment decisions.

“From the conversations we’re having with our business owners, they feel there is no incentive right now for them to take on new staff, so the Chancellor has to find a way of stimulating growth in the jobs market.

“One of the ways he could do this is to offer a holiday on employers’ National Insurance contributions for small firms creating new jobs. A similar measure announced last year only applied to start-up companies, but there aren’t many start-ups that employ people in their first year anyway.

“This measure would be far more effective if it was opened up to existing small firms because it would ease their tax burden and I think we would start to see a greater willingness to invest in new staff.”

Chancellor George Osborne delivers his Budget on Wednesday March 21.