Concerns for Wiltshire's small businesses as National Insurance hikes hit
From today (6/4),the employer's National Insurance rate increases to 15%
Wiltshire business experts are telling us that small enterprises could be at risk as National Insurance rises come into action today (6/4).
From today, the employer's National Insurance rate will rise by 1.2% to 15%, and the threshold at which employers start paying National Insurance on an employee's earnings will drop from £9,100 to £5,000 per year.
All businesses, regardless of size, pays National Insurance for every employee they have.
It's leading to worries that a domino effect could see smaller organisations hit hardest.
Sam Holliday is from the Federation of Small Businesses: "When the government asks for an increase in that National Insurance contribution, then it just takes the money straight off the bottom line of every business. So they're going to have less money to play with."
He added that some small companies are protected as they do business with larger organisations, however, Sam did say that if those bigger operations begin to struggle, it will hit the smaller ones hard.
He said: "If you're a big business that's having a massive increase in your National Insurance contributions, there's only a couple of ways you can go.
"You can either cut back your own staff, you can increase your costs, or you can reduce the money you spend with your suppliers and that's as small businesses.
"So everyone's very nervous about that, and it's going to have a big impact."
Sam warned of a "domino effect", as smaller shops need the bigger ones next door to survive.
"They still need the magnet stores that people will go specifically into town to go and use those shops and then they'll support the small businesses while they're at it.
"It's exactly the same in every kind of business, if a big business is successful, it's relying lots of small businesses to supply to it, but if the big business starts getting less successful, smaller businesses suffer as well."