Social Welfare Act, 2001

Self-employment contributions (new rates of contributions and abolition of income ceiling).

9.—(1) Section 18(1) of the Principal Act is amended by—

(a) the substitution for paragraph (a) (as amended by section 9 of the Act of 1996) of the following paragraph:

“(a) Subject to paragraph (b) and (h), where in any contribution year a self-employed contributor has reckonable income there shall be payable by him or her a self-employment contribution which shall be of an amount equal to 3 per cent. of the reckonable income or the amount of £200 whichever is the greater.”,

(b) the substitution for paragraph (c) (as amended by section 9 of the Act of 1996) of the following paragraph:

“(c) Subject to paragraph (h), where in any contribution year a payment is made to a self-employed contributor in respect of reckonable emoluments of that self-employed contributor, there shall be payable by him or her a self-employment contribution which shall be of an amount equal to 3 per cent. of the reckonable emoluments or the amount of £200, whichever is the greater.”,

(c) the deletion of paragraph (d),

(d) the deletion of paragraph (f), and

(e) the substitution in paragraph (h) (as amended by section 9 of the Act of 1996) of “£200” for “£215”.

(2) Section 19 of the Principal Act is amended by—

(a) the substitution in subsection (1) for “Subject to subsection (2), regulations” of “Regulations”, and

(b) the substitution for subsections (2), (3) and (4) of the following subsections:

“(2) The Minister may by regulations specify circumstances in which contributions payable by a self-employed contributor may be treated as paid.

(3) For the purposes of this section ‘contributions’ means employment contributions payable under section 10 and self-employment contributions payable under section 18.”.

(3) Section 4 of the Principal Act is amended by the deletion in subsection (5) (as amended by section 17 of the Act of 2000) of “18(1)(f),”.

(4) This section comes into operation on 6 April 2001.