Government considers tax-free jobs

The Government is said to be mulling over the idea of creating mini-jobs which would mean that taxpayers could do a certain amount of work without paying tax or National Insurance.Reports say that the scheme is being considered as a way to boost employment and is based on a similar initiative in Germany, where employees can earn up to the equivalent of £314 per month without paying tax. Employers only pay basic National Insurance for pensions, social insurance and wage taxes.Workers can hold several mini-jobs which pay below the taxation threshold, with the only impact on their take-home pay being the reduction of unemployment benefit over a certain threshold. Above the £314 payment mark, workers are taxed on a sliding scale.Some in Germany have called the scheme, which was brought in almost 10 years ago, a “jobs miracle” and the country has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe. However, Germany also has no minimum wage, unlike the UK, and some say such initiatives trap workers in low-paid, dead-end jobs.One of Chancellor George Osborne’s allies is quoted by the Guardian as saying, "What I can tell you is that this is being looked at in government. There are lots of ideas that are being looked at as part of the deregulation drive, and this is one of them."

http://www.50percenttax.co.uk/index/2012/9/26/government-considers-tax-free-jobs.html