{"id":99244,"date":"2026-08-07T13:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/99244\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T13:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:21:09","slug":"andy-burnham-urged-to-raise-income-tax-to-52","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/99244\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham urged to raise income tax to 52%"},"content":{"rendered":"

A centre-right think tank has called on Andy Burnham to increase the top rate of income tax to 52 per cent. <\/p>\n

It comes amid calls for a sweeping overhaul of the tax system designed to improve support for Britain’s self-employed workers.<\/p>\n

Bright Blue has proposed abolishing employer National Insurance contributions entirely while bringing National Insurance rates for self-employed workers into line with those paid by employees.<\/p>\n

The organisation said the reforms could be funded through increases across all income tax bands.<\/p>\n

In return, around five million self-employed people would gain access to automatic pension enrolment, statutory sick pay and parental leave, benefits that are currently unavailable to many people working for themselves.<\/p>\n

Under Bright Blue’s proposals, the basic rate of income tax would increase from 20 per cent to 31 per cent.<\/p>\n

The higher rate would rise from 40 per cent to 48 per cent.<\/p>\n

The additional rate would increase from 45 per cent to 52 per cent.<\/p>\n

It also proposed introducing a new 13 per cent income tax band covering earnings between \u00a35,000 and \u00a312,570.<\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/p>\n

Think tank calls for income tax to rise to 52 per cent under major shake-up<\/p>\n

| PA<\/p>\n

Bright Blue said the income tax increases would offset the cost of abolishing employer National Insurance contributions.<\/p>\n

It said a self-employed person earning \u00a339,000 currently pays around \u00a31,587 in National Insurance.<\/p>\n

By comparison, an employee earning the same salary and their employer together pay approximately \u00a37,214 in National Insurance contributions.<\/p>\n

According to the think tank, this creates a gap in the system worth around \u00a310billion.<\/p>\n

The self-employed account for around 13 per cent of the British workforce but do not receive many of the employment protections available to employees.<\/p>\n

\"HMRC<\/p>\n

For example, statutory sick pay is not currently available to self-employed workers<\/p>\n

| GETTY<\/p>\n

The Government’s Pensions Commission has also found that just four per cent of self-employed workers are saving for retirement.<\/p>\n

Bright Blue said its proposals would extend access to Universal Credit, parental leave, statutory sick pay and state-backed pension contributions.<\/p>\n

The organisation also highlighted differences in earnings between employees and the self-employed.<\/p>\n

During the 2024-25 tax year, the median net annual earnings of a full-time self-employed worker were \u00a322,800 compared with \u00a329,000 for a full-time employee.<\/p>\n

Bartek Staniszewski, head of policy at Bright Blue, said: “The system was envisioned at a time when the self-employed paid a little less in tax to get a lot less in social security.<\/p>\n

“This time is now gone. The self-employed are more insecure than ever and, even though they pay far less in tax than employees while getting only a little less help from the state, they think that the system is squarely against them.”<\/p>\n

He added: “Clearly, a new deal is necessary.<\/p>\n

“Better protections for the self-employed and fair tax treatment for all would be welcomed by the self-employed while either raising billions of pounds for HM Revenue & Customs or putting billions back in the pockets of employees.”<\/p>\n

Critics of higher taxation have warned that increasing the burden on top earners could encourage entrepreneurs and investors to relocate overseas.<\/p>\n

The proposals come ahead of the Budget on October 28.<\/p>\n

Mr Burnham has previously suggested raising the additional rate of income tax to 50 per cent to help fund public services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A centre-right think tank has called on Andy Burnham to increase the top rate of income tax to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[7786,253,14,73,5,20,6],"class_list":["post-99244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-andy-burnham","tag-money","tag-politics","tag-tax","tag-uk","tag-uk-politics","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117054438218202642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}