Sleeping Partners and NI

Newsletter issue - May 2013.

In the past sleeping partners and inactive partners didn't have to pay NI contributions on their partnership profits. However, HMRC changed its view on this in April 2013 and it now considers that all partners are liable to pay NICs in respect of their taxable profits, whatever their level of activity within the business. The implications for inactive and sleeping partners are:

• if not already registered as self-employed, the person must register with HMRC and arrange to pay class 2 NICs from 6 April 2013;
• exemption from paying class 2 NICs can be claimed if the taxable profits are low, or the individual has another employment; and
• class 4 NICs will be due on their profits from 2013/14 onwards and will be collected through the normal self-assessment for 2013/14.