National Insurance Act 1959
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1959 c. 47 |
| Year | 1959 |
National Insurance Act, 1959
(7 & 8 Eliz. 2) CHAPTER 47
An Act to alter the contributions payable to the National Insurance Fund under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1957, and the retirement benefits payable under those Acts, and in particular to provide for payment of a graduated retirement benefit in return for contributions related to the amount of a person's remuneration, and for purposes connected therewith.
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I
Contributions and Retirement Benefits
Contributions
1 Changes in contributions to the National Insurance Fund.
(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, and in particular to those in Part II about non-participating employments, the contributions for which employed persons and employers are liable under the National Insurance Act, 1946 (in this Act referred to as ‘the principal Act’) shall be altered as follows:—
(a ) the rates of the contributions payable under subsection (2) of section two of the principal Act for any contribution week (beginning with such week as may be appointed by order of the Minister) shall—
(i) in the case of an employed person of any description referred to in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act; and
(ii) in the case of the employer of an employed person of any description referred to in Part II of that Schedule, or of a person of any such description who is to be treated by virtue of that Part of that Schedule as an employed person;
be those respectively shown in that Schedule, and accordingly for those cases the said Parts I and II shall, in relation to any such week, be substituted for the corresponding Parts of the First Schedule to the principal Act; and
(b ) where in any income tax week (beginning with such week as may be appointed by order of the Minister) there is made to or for the benefit of a person over the age of eighteen a payment on account of his remuneration in any one employment of an amount exceeding nine pounds (or the equivalent amount for remuneration not paid weekly), then if the employment was an employed contributor's employment and he either is under pensionable age or has not retired from regular employment—
(i) he shall be liable to pay a graduated contribution based on that payment; and
(ii) his employer in the employment shall be liable to pay such a contribution in respect of him; and
(iii) the amount of the graduated contribution payable by either of them shall be four and a quarter per cent. of the amount, up to six pounds, by which the payment exceeds nine pounds (or of the equivalent amount for remuneration not paid weekly).
(2) In each of the four years nineteen sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five and eighty the rates of the contributions payable to the National Insurance Fund by insured persons and employers shall be increased (for that and subsequent years) as follows:—
(a ) beginning with the sixth day of April, an addition of a quarter per cent. shall be made to the rate at which graduated contributions are calculated on the relevant amount of remuneration; and
(b ) beginning with the first Monday in April—
(i) an addition of fivepence per week shall be made to each of the rates under the First Schedule to this Act, to the rate of any contribution payable as an insured person by a boy or girl under the age of eighteen and to the rate of any employer's contribution payable in respect of a person under that age; and
(ii) an addition of ninepence per week shall be made to the rate of any other contribution:
Provided that if the Minister with the consent of the Treasury by order so directs, this subsection shall have effect in relation to the increases to be made in any of the said four years with the substitution for the references to a quarter, to fivepence and to ninepence of references to any less amounts specified by the order.
(3) The following provisions shall have effect as regards the contributions payable to the National Insurance Fund out of moneys provided by Parliament, that is to say,—
(a ) from the coming into force of the contribution rates fixed by paragraph (a ) of subsection (1) of this section, Part V of the First Schedule to the principal Act (which, as set out in Part V of the Third Schedule to the National Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1957, fixes the amounts of the Exchequer supplements) shall be repealed and, subject to paragraph (b ) below,—
(i) the Exchequer supplements for contributions as an employed person and for employer's contributions shall be of an amount equal to one quarter of the contributions, but so that no Exchequer supplements shall be payable for graduated contributions; and
(ii) the Exchequer supplements for contributions as a self-employed or non-employed person shall be of an amount equal to one third of the contributions;
(b ) in every financial year ending in or after the year nineteen sixty-two, there shall, at such times and in such manner as the Treasury may determine, be paid for the Exchequer supplements in respect of contributions paid in that financial year sums amounting in the aggregate to not less than one hundred and seventy million pounds;
(c ) in respect of the financial years ending in the years nineteen sixty-one and sixty-two, there may, at such times and in such manner as the Treasury may determine, be paid in addition to the Exchequer supplements such sums as may be so determined, not exceeding in the aggregate, with the sums paid in respect of the five preceding financial years under subsection (3) of section two of the National Insurance Act, 1954, the three hundred and twenty-five million pounds authorised to be paid under that subsection in respect of those five years.
2 Further provisions as to graduated contributions.
(1) In relation to graduated contributions references in this Act to remuneration shall be taken to include, and include only, any emoluments assessable to income tax under Schedule E (other than pensions), being emoluments from which tax under that Schedule is deductible, but shall apply to a payment of any such remuneration, whether or not tax in fact falls to be deducted from that payment.
(2) Except in so far as regulations otherwise provide, the graduated contributions payable in any income tax week in respect of a person's remuneration shall be determined—
(a ) by aggregating, and treating as a single payment of remuneration in one employment, all payments made in that week on account of remuneration in the same employment, or in any two or more employments under the same employer, except any employment such that graduated contributions are not payable in respect of it;
(b ) by apportioning between the employments any single payment of remuneration in two or more employments under different employers, and (subject to the foregoing paragraph) treating as separate payments the parts apportioned to each employment.
(3) Where a person in any income tax year is paid remuneration from two or more employments, and the graduated contributions paid by him in respect of that remuneration exceed such amount as may be prescribed, the excess—
(a ) shall for the purposes of the powers conferred by section eight of the principal Act be treated as representing contributions of the wrong class paid in error; and
(b ) shall for the purpose of any right under this Act to benefit be treated as not properly payable.
(4) For the purpose of graduated contributions any sums deducted (whether for contributions, for income tax or otherwise) from any payment of remuneration which is or would but for the deduction be made shall, except in so far as regulations otherwise provide, be treated as paid on account of the remuneration; and for the purpose aforesaid any payment of remuneration shall be disregarded in so far as it is directed by regulations to be treated as coming from sums comprised in a previous payment of remuneration or to be otherwise excluded from the computation of a person's remuneration.
(5) Provision shall be made by regulations for determining the graduated contributions payable where the whole or part of a person's remuneration in any employment is not paid weekly (and accordingly for determining the equivalent amounts mentioned in subsection (1) of section one of this Act), and may include provision for modifying subsection (2) of this section; and regulations may also, for the purpose of graduated contributions, make provision as to the intervals at which a person's remuneration or any part of it is to be treated as paid where it is not all paid at the same intervals of a week or longer and in the amounts due for those or for corresponding intervals.
(6) Regulations may also in relation to graduated contributions make provision—
(a ) for calculating the amounts payable according to a prescribed scale or otherwise adjusting them so as to avoid fractional amounts or otherwise facilitate computation; and
(b ) for requiring that the liability in respect of payments made in an income tax week, in so far as it depends on any condition as to a person's age or retirement, shall be determined as at the beginning of the week or as at the end of it; and
(c ) for securing that liability is not avoided or reduced by an employer following in the payment of persons employed any practice which is abnormal for their employments.
(7) Subject to the provisions of this Act, all the provisions of the principal Act or any other enactment relating to contributions as an employed person and to employer's contributions (other than provisions of the principal Act regulating the number and amount of any contributions, or the...
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