Reform's Shadow Chancellor, , will tomorrow announce the
biggest planned intervention in a decade to rescue small
businesses across the country.
The flagship policies include reversing Rachel Reeves's job tax
for British workers, raising the VAT registration to £150,000,
scrapping income tax on overtime and overhauling burdensome EU
data regulation.
Reform UK will:
- Scrap GDPR and replace with light-touch style privacy law
modelled on New Zealand
- Allow relatives to invest in small businesses by expanding
the SEIS scheme
- Reverse Rachel Reeves's national insurance increase for
British workers
- Introduce a Hard Work Bonus by scrapping income tax on
overtime
- Increase the VAT registration from £90,000 to £150,000
- Scrap the 2035 Electric Vehicle Mandate to ease pressure on
tradesmen
- Create the £2000 Apprentice Retention Bonus
- Remove Labour's damaging work regulations
- Reverse Rachel Reeves's IHT raid on family businesses and
farms
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Reform UK leader, , 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, , 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.
