It is unclear how Reform UK’s pledges, which could cost billions of pounds in tax revenue, would be funded, say leading audit, tax and business advisory firm, Blick Rothenberg.
Tom Goddard, an Assistant Manager at the firm, said: “The Shadow Chancellor for Reform UK, Robert Jenrick has pledged that he would scrap tax on overtime payments, cut national insurance for businesses who ‘hire British workers’, lower the rate of VAT for self-employed individuals, and give every taxpayer a £30 tax credit if they are on the phone with HMRC for more than 30 minutes.”
He added: “However, there is little detail on how these measures would work, how much they would cost to be implemented, and how the resulting loss in tax revenue would be offset. Although Reform UK has suggested welfare spending cuts could fund these measures in part, detailed fiscal analysis of both costs and savings would be needed to actually assess if this is feasible.”
Tom said: “Scrapping income tax on overtime, lowering National Insurance Contributions (NIC), and decreasing VAT would impact each of the UK’s ‘big three’ tax generators. Consecutive governments have ruled out making changes to these three taxes as they constitute too large a portion of the country’s revenue – around 75% for the period from August 2025 to July 2026. Lowering the rates of the big three, even if only under specific circumstances, could cost the country billions in tax revenue which would need to be accounted for elsewhere.”
He added: “The commitment to lower VAT for self-employed workers could also create both fairness and complexity issues. VAT is generally levied on goods and services rather than individual employment status. Creating a separate VAT regime for one category of worker could introduce new administrative burdens, further costs and increase opportunities for tax avoidance through reclassification of employment status.”
Tom said: “The introduction of a new tax credit scheme based on call times with HMRC, could cost the country millions in implementation before the first qualifying call, as the scheme would require implementing robust mechanisms to verify eligibility, process claims, prevent fraud and administer payments.”
He added: “By HMRC’s own statistics, there were 24 million calls for the year in 2025, of these, 50% had a waiting time of 10 minutes. Taking a conservative approach, 15% of total calls may have had a call time of longer than 30 minutes. This amounts to 3.6 million calls, each of which would be entitled to a £30 tax credit, therefore resulting in further cost to the government of £108m.”
Tom said: “It could be argued that linking compensation directly to time spent on a call risk encouraging individuals to remain on the line unnecessarily or to repeatedly contact HMRC in pursuit of a credit. Even if safeguards could be introduced, doing so would add further complexity to what is intended as a remedy for long wait times.”
He added: “There are serious problems with the UK’s tax system – and these do need to be addressed in a proactive and comprehensive measure. However, adding additional complexities to the system is unlikely to be the answer.”