Reform UK’s Shadow Chancellor, Robert Jenrick, today announced the biggest planned intervention in a decade to rescue small businesses across the country.
The flagship policies include reversing Labour’s job tax for British workers, raising the VAT registration threshold to £150,000, scrapping income tax on overtime and overhauling burdensome EU data regulation.
Reform UK will:
Reverse Labour’s national insurance increase for British workers
Reform UK’s targeted tax cuts will disproportionately benefit small business owners. Our plan to raise the VAT registration will benefit 320,000 small businesses immediately, at a cost of £2.4 billion a year.
We will also reverse Rachel Reeves’s IHT raid on family farms and businesses.
We will also make it cheaper for small businesses to hire and train British workers. Reform UK is the only party that will reverse the National Insurance increase on British workers, paid for by a levy on migrant workers. Under Reform’s Hard Work Bonus, employees earning under £75,000 would pay no income tax on overtime worked above a 40 hour week, increasing their incentive to put in extra shifts and boosting productivity.
Our apprenticeship policies will pay apprentices who finish their training and stick around for two years with £2000, as well as subsidising the wages of young apprentices. We will also reverse the onerous employment regulations Labour have introduced that have only made it harder to take people on.
Economists have found that GDPR cut investment in tech firms by 25% compared with their American competitors. It also halved the numbers of new apps being added to the Google Play Store, including from the UK. Under GDPR rules small businesses that list possible business customers’ emails can be considered ‘data processing’ and create legal obligations.
Reform UK will scrap the GDPR and model data protections on New Zealand’s which has the lightest-touch regime still recognised as being ‘adequate’ by the EU.
Our changes to the ‘Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme’ will make it easier for small businesses to attract investment.
This highly successful scheme provides tax advantages for investments in small businesses, but it isn’t available to close relatives. Most business owners don’t have wealthy friends who can invest in their firms - and the young are increasingly without equity in homes to draw upon; our reform would allow parents and grandparents to receive tax advantages for modest investments too. This will allow them to invest up to £250,000 in their child or grandchild’s small business and receive an income tax rebate of 50%, as well as an exemption from capital gains tax if they hold the investment for 3 years.
We will remove silly rules that drive up the cost of doing business. By abolishing Net Zero, we will drive down the cost of gas and electricity. For firms in the new economy, we will repeal and replace the GDPR. For small businesses that rely on diesel vehicles to get around and do their jobs, we will scrap the 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans.
It comes as data shows less than a fifth of Britain’s small businesses are expecting to grow over the 12 months and over a third are expecting to shrink or close altogether.
In addition, Reform will grant a £30 tax credit to anybody forced to wait more than 30 minutes on the phone to HMRC. To make sure officials hit their targets, Reform will tie the pay of senior HMRC officials to their customer service performance. If senior officials fail to make progress on waiting times, they will be fired.
Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, said: "Small businesses are the beating heart of our economy, yet they have been suffocated by years of punishing taxes, suffocating EU red tape and a big-state obsession that rewards dependency over hard work.
"While the establishment parties drive small firms to the brink of closure, Reform UK is offering a bold, common-sense rescue plan.
"By slashing burdens like the VAT threshold, reversing the jobs tax on British workers and rewarding hard-work by scrapping tax on overtime, we are unchaining British enterprise and backing the workers who actually create wealth."
Reform’s shadow Chancellor, Robert Jenrick, said: “Under a Reform government, the UK will be the best place in the world to start and grow a small business. We will back employers by reversing Rachel Reeves’s job tax on British workers and raising the VAT threshold to £150,000 - and we will reward hardworking employees by scrapping income tax on overtime.
GDPR has strangled small businesses and tech firms alike in a web of unnecessary regulation. A Reform UK government would scrap GDPR and replace it with a light-touch replacement modelled on New Zealand’s privacy laws. Ten years after the Brexit referendum we should not still be following ridiculous EU privacy laws that hurt British businesses.
For decades governments have focussed on big corporations while leaving small businesses to fall by the wayside. No more. Reform UK believes the 6 million small businesses in the UK are the backbone of our high streets and our economy and we will back them to the hilt.”
The flagship policies include reversing Labour’s job tax for British workers, raising the VAT registration threshold to £150,000, scrapping income tax on overtime and overhauling burdensome EU data regulation.
Reform UK will:
Reverse Labour’s national insurance increase for British workers
- Introduce a Hard Work Bonus by scrapping income tax on overtime
- Increase the VAT registration threshold from £90,000 to £150,000
- Scrap GDPR and replace with a light-touch style privacy law
- Allow relatives to invest in small businesses by expanding the SEIS scheme
- Scrap the 2035 Electric Vehicle Mandate to ease pressure on tradesmen
- Create the £2000 Apprentice Retention Bonus
- Remove Labour’s damaging work regulations
- Reverse Labour’s inheritance tax raid on family businesses and farms
- Give a £30 tax credit to those waiting over 30 minutes on the phone to HMRC
Reform UK’s targeted tax cuts will disproportionately benefit small business owners. Our plan to raise the VAT registration will benefit 320,000 small businesses immediately, at a cost of £2.4 billion a year.
We will also reverse Rachel Reeves’s IHT raid on family farms and businesses.
We will also make it cheaper for small businesses to hire and train British workers. Reform UK is the only party that will reverse the National Insurance increase on British workers, paid for by a levy on migrant workers. Under Reform’s Hard Work Bonus, employees earning under £75,000 would pay no income tax on overtime worked above a 40 hour week, increasing their incentive to put in extra shifts and boosting productivity.
Our apprenticeship policies will pay apprentices who finish their training and stick around for two years with £2000, as well as subsidising the wages of young apprentices. We will also reverse the onerous employment regulations Labour have introduced that have only made it harder to take people on.
Economists have found that GDPR cut investment in tech firms by 25% compared with their American competitors. It also halved the numbers of new apps being added to the Google Play Store, including from the UK. Under GDPR rules small businesses that list possible business customers’ emails can be considered ‘data processing’ and create legal obligations.
Reform UK will scrap the GDPR and model data protections on New Zealand’s which has the lightest-touch regime still recognised as being ‘adequate’ by the EU.
Our changes to the ‘Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme’ will make it easier for small businesses to attract investment.
This highly successful scheme provides tax advantages for investments in small businesses, but it isn’t available to close relatives. Most business owners don’t have wealthy friends who can invest in their firms - and the young are increasingly without equity in homes to draw upon; our reform would allow parents and grandparents to receive tax advantages for modest investments too. This will allow them to invest up to £250,000 in their child or grandchild’s small business and receive an income tax rebate of 50%, as well as an exemption from capital gains tax if they hold the investment for 3 years.
We will remove silly rules that drive up the cost of doing business. By abolishing Net Zero, we will drive down the cost of gas and electricity. For firms in the new economy, we will repeal and replace the GDPR. For small businesses that rely on diesel vehicles to get around and do their jobs, we will scrap the 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans.
It comes as data shows less than a fifth of Britain’s small businesses are expecting to grow over the 12 months and over a third are expecting to shrink or close altogether.
In addition, Reform will grant a £30 tax credit to anybody forced to wait more than 30 minutes on the phone to HMRC. To make sure officials hit their targets, Reform will tie the pay of senior HMRC officials to their customer service performance. If senior officials fail to make progress on waiting times, they will be fired.
Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, said: "Small businesses are the beating heart of our economy, yet they have been suffocated by years of punishing taxes, suffocating EU red tape and a big-state obsession that rewards dependency over hard work.
"While the establishment parties drive small firms to the brink of closure, Reform UK is offering a bold, common-sense rescue plan.
"By slashing burdens like the VAT threshold, reversing the jobs tax on British workers and rewarding hard-work by scrapping tax on overtime, we are unchaining British enterprise and backing the workers who actually create wealth."
Reform’s shadow Chancellor, Robert Jenrick, said: “Under a Reform government, the UK will be the best place in the world to start and grow a small business. We will back employers by reversing Rachel Reeves’s job tax on British workers and raising the VAT threshold to £150,000 - and we will reward hardworking employees by scrapping income tax on overtime.
GDPR has strangled small businesses and tech firms alike in a web of unnecessary regulation. A Reform UK government would scrap GDPR and replace it with a light-touch replacement modelled on New Zealand’s privacy laws. Ten years after the Brexit referendum we should not still be following ridiculous EU privacy laws that hurt British businesses.
For decades governments have focussed on big corporations while leaving small businesses to fall by the wayside. No more. Reform UK believes the 6 million small businesses in the UK are the backbone of our high streets and our economy and we will back them to the hilt.”
