NIC abolished for apprentices under 25

Wed 03 Dec 2014

From April 2016 employers who have apprentices aged 25 years and under on their payroll will be able to claim exemption from employers NIC on the cost of the apprentices salary up to the upper earnings limit. Based upon the rates and thresholds for 2015/16 you could pay an apprentice a salary of up to £42,380 and pay no employers NIC. This will affect those employers who have, or are looking to place employees who are under 25 on to an apprenticeship scheme.

To encourage employers to place younger workers onto apprenticeship schemes the Government has announced that it intends to extend the age limit of qualifying apprentices from those under 21 years of age to under 25 years of age. This measure will come into effect from April 2016 and in its first year the Government forecast it will save employers £105million in employers NIC. The aim of this measure is to see the UK develop a more highly skilled workforce that will assist in the sustained economic growth of the UK economy in the coming years.

Mazars welcome the announcement and sees it as a positive measure to encourage employers to increase the number of skilled workers within the UK workforce. The development of a more highly skilled workforce will no doubt be a major contributory factor to the UK in both increasing the number in employment and both sustaining and indeed increasing its levels of economic growth over the coming years.