In the March 2015 Budget, the Chancellor George Osborne announced that as part of his drive to make the tax affairs of millions of self-employed people in the UK simpler, he planned to abolish Class 2 national insurance contributions (NICs). Given that it is Class 2 NICs that currently provide the self-employed with their entry fee to the contributory benefits system, the accompanying documents advised that the abolition of Class 2 NICs would be supplemented by reform of Class 4 NICs to introduce a new benefit test.