§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to prevent the avoidance of national insurance by payment of salaries in the form of antiques and works of art. [17830]
§ Mr. LilleyI shall act whenever necessary where there is evidence of devious practice whose main objective is to avoid national insurance contributions.
I have today laid regulations—SI 1995/1003—which, by using existing powers, adds to schedule 1A of the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 1979 payments by way of assets including vouchers for which trading arrangements exist and vouchers for those assets. The regulations also provide for the valuing of these items. These changes come into effect from 6 April.
In this way I am removing from the list of exclusions from NI contributions a range of schemes by which employers may have attempted to avoid payment. I have asked the Contributions Agency to continue to monitor closely any further efforts to develop practices whose main aim is to avoid NI contributions.