Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The FSB is the UK's largest campaigning pressure group promoting and protecting the interests of more than 200,000 self-employed individuals and owners of small firms.
We offer a range of member benefits including free legal advice 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, and free financial and insurance health checks that can save businesses thousands of pounds per year.
Currently we are championing the UK's Entrepreneurs through our Real Life Entrepreneurs campaign by giving practical support through benefits and by ensuring that entrepreneurs are viewed as job, wealth and growth creators of the future in the corridors of power across the UK.
One of the aims of the campaign is to tell government that they need to help small firms take on staff to drive employment. Recent FSB data shows that a balance of six per cent more businesses think that they will lay people off in the coming three months, pointing to a further increase in unemployment by the end of the year.
The FSB has long called for the current National Insurance Contributions (NICs) holiday to be extended to existing businesses across the UK that have fewer than four employees and that employ up to three more staff. The current NICs holiday is only open to new start ups (and businesses outside London, East and the South East of England) and has not had the take-up that the Government expected, with only 7,000 businesses using it. By extending it, the Government has the opportunity to put more people in a job which in turn would boost the tax base and money to the treasury.
The people who have taken a leap and started up on their own will be the ones who employ people and with more than 2.5 million people out of work, this is more important than ever. But, the recent FSB ‘Voice of Small Business’ Index, which measures business confidence, showed that small firms were feeling less confident about their prospects in the third quarter than at the start of the year.
We are also calling for decision makers to listen to the FSB by:
- Increasing the routes to finance by creating more competition in the banking sector.
- Adopting a new approach to regulation and cut down the amount of red tape small firms have to plough through.
- Improving cash-flow by ensuring that small business are paid on time.
- Creating a simplified tax system for small businesses that find it complex and burdensome.
- Opening up export markets so that small businesses can really begin to grow the economy.
We are delighted to work in partnership with Fresh Business Thinking, as they support the aims of the FSB and our campaign. To find out more, visit www.fsb.org.uk/value
John Walker is the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments