Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many businesses are likely to be affected by the introduction of the flat rate for limited cost businesses in the VAT Flat Rate Scheme; and what estimate they have made of the proportion of these that are operated by self-employed individuals.

Of the 411,000 businesses that use the VAT Flat Rate Scheme (FRS), we estimate that 128,000 have limited costs. We have not estimated how many of these businesses are operated by self-employed individuals. Of the FRS population as a whole, around 87% are incorporated companies, 11% are sole proprietors and 2% are partnerships.