Let Us Consult Sensibly

'Starting up in Business' contains potentially beneficial proposals.
As one who spends much of his working life advising self-employed workers on the lowest incomes I rarely support proposals that would impose further burdens on this sector but I do feel that the Revenue's recent consultation paper 'Starting up in Business' deserves a more positive response than it has received in the professional press to date.
The document puts forward 'proposals for:
 streamlining the process for the newly self-employed to register for National Insurance contributions purposes and for this registration to trigger provision of information and support to them;
 improving that information and support; and
 making the existing requirement for newly self-employed people to register for National Insurance contributions purposes more effective by imposing a fixed penalty if it is not done within a reasonable time.'
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