Policy background
The Government’s ultimate ambition has been to align the NICs starting thresholds with the income tax personal allowance. For the 2020-21 tax year the PT and LPL were raised by over £800 to £9,500, representing a tax cut for 31 million workers. For 2021-22, the PT and LPL were increased by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to £9,568. The current legislated position for 2022-23 is a further increase by CPI to £9,880 from 6 April 2022.
	At Spring Statement 2022 the Government announced that it will meet this ambition by aligning the starting thresholds from July 2022 and, alongside this, from 6 April 2022, self-employed individuals with profits between the Small Profit Threshold and LPL will continue to be able to build up National Insurance credits but will not pay any Class 2 NICs.