Income tax likely to go up if national insurance scrapped, Hunt suggests

Labour says chancellor’s ambition to eventually abolish NI would cost £46bn a year, and party questions how move would be paid for

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Income tax may eventually have to be raised to pay for abolishing national insurance, Jeremy Hunt has suggested the day after delivering the government’s spring budget.

The chancellor spent about £10bn to cut NI by 2p in the budget, and has indicated that the government’s eventual ambition is to scrap the tax entirely.