Twists and turns

KEY POINTS * Manipulating small business tax through tax rates. * Who benefits from aligning tax and National Insurance? * Why businesses opt to incorporate. * The Government should consider a disincorporation incentive.

IMAGINE THAT YOU are one of the intellectual undergraduates or graduates picked to represent your university for University Challenge. You might think that you have a chance of knowing the answers to the questions ... think again. Here is your starter for ten.  Are small companies:

• The lifeblood of the UK economy?
• A scam which allows workers to dodge paying their fair share of taxes?
• Both of these?

This is the dilemma which the Chancellor has been grappling with for a number of years. But before we all join hands and shed a silent tear in sympathy for his difficulties we do have to acknowledge that...