Britain’s four biggest supermarket chains face paying an extra £200m in National Insurance contributions between them, as the Chancellor prepares to raise tens of billions of pounds from raiding companies.
Sky News understands that Tesco, Asda, J Sainsbury and Wm Morrison could be hit by an additional tax bill from a two percentage point increase in employer NICs in the wake of Rachel Reeves’ Budget on Wednesday.
One analyst said the £200m figure was a “reliable estimate” given the size of the collective workforce in UK grocery stores.
They added that Tesco, which employs nearly 300,000 people in Britain, could pay nearly £75 million alone into national investment firms.
Between them, the quartet employ more than half a million people in the UK.
Supermarkets will be among the businesses most affected by a two percentage point increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions – an increase that has been widely tracked in recent days and on which the Treasury has declined to comment.
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In an article in The Times last week, Stuart Machin, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, urged the Chancellor not to raise taxes, describing it as an “easy, short-term solution”.
“M&S is one of the UK’s largest taxpayers, contributing £480m to the Treasury,” he wrote.
“However, when I hear about plans to increase National Insurance, a tax that has nothing to do with profit and which hurts large employers like us and our small suppliers, I worry.
“The Chancellor has been right in the past to describe National Insurance as a tax on workers.”
None of the supermarkets contacted by Sky News on Tuesday commented.
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