Tories promise 'fair deal' for freelancers
Senior members of the Conservative Party will meet in the next few days to discuss its position in regards to the tax treatment of freelancers and small businesses.
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Mark Prisk, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury and treasurer of the All Party Parliamentary Small Business Group, said he would be talking with shadow chancellor, Michael Howard, and Tim Yeo, shadow secretary of state, to discuss how ‘we as a party can actually get a fair deal for freelancers’.
The news follows a series of recent consultations carried out by the Small Business group – the biggest All-Party Parliamentary Group, with over 430 members. It received over 250 pieces of evidence from freelancers involved in all walks of life.
‘Freelancers feel they are treated like second class citizens,’ said Prisk. ‘I want to make sure that the Conservative Party, when it puts its manifesto together, sets out a fair deal.’
Top of the list of priorities for both Prisk and pressure groups such as the Professional Contractors Group and Shout99 is the governments interpretation of Section 660A, the so-called married couples tax, and IR35.
Shout99 will hold a Section 660A conference tomorrow aimed at accountants and freelancers. It comes on the back of worries that the government is set to increase its attack on family run businesses after paymaster general, Dawn Primarolo, insisted there is nothing new in the legislation.
‘The settlements legislation (of which Section 660A-G Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 are part) is a long standing piece of legislation dating back to 1936,’ she wrote in a letter to a MP representing a constituent.
