Autumn Finance Bill and NIC Bill

ICAEW’s Tax Faculty highlights the key measures included in the Autumn Finance Bill and the NIC Bill.

Following the Autumn Statement 2023, the government has published two bills.

The Finance Bill 2023-24 (also known as the Autumn Finance Bill) was published on 29 November. The bill reflects changes made as a result of the consultations that took place on many measures. These include the merger of the R&D tax relief schemes, changes to the data that HMRC collects, abolishing the pensions lifetime allowance, and tackling promoters.

It also includes legislation for some newly announced policies from the Autumn Statement, such as:

making full expensing permanent;
extending tax relief for enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trust investments to shares issued before 6 April 2035;
making the cash basis the default for self-employed traders from 6 April 2024; and
making changes to the construction industry scheme gross payment status from 6 April 2024.

The other key Autumn Statement announcement concerned changes to national insurance contributions (NIC). The legislation to enact these changes is contained in the National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Bill, published on 23 November.

The NIC bill includes legislation to:

reduce the employee class 1 NIC rate from 12% to 10% from 6 January 2024;
set the blended rate for directors as 11.5% for 2023/24;
reduce the class 4 NIC rate for the self-employed from 9% to 8% from 6 April 2024; and
remove class 2 NIC for the self-employed with profits above the lower profits threshold from 6 April 2024.

The NIC bill is being fast-tracked to pass the changes to the class 1 rates before 6 January 2024.

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