Scrap tax on overtime hours, says Reform UK

Income tax on overtime above a 40-hour week should be scrapped for workers earning less than £75,000, Reform UK has said.

The party estimates what it is calling a "hard work bonus" would save a full time nurse working six hours of overtime each week more than £1,300 a year.

Reform said the policy would cost £5bn a year and could be paid for through its plans to make cuts to welfare payments.

But Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems all questioned whether Reform would find the money for the plans.

Reform leader Nigel Farage said the overtime proposals would "finally make work pay, drive up productivity and restore the appeal of a strong work culture once again".

He said hardworking people "look around and see that work simply doesn't pay, that benefits often match or beat what they earn, and that ordinary families are being dragged into higher tax bands with nothing to show for it".

Reform UK says its £75,000 threshold would mean 90% of workers could benefit from its proposed tax cut.

It estimates that around 3.2 million workers receive overtime pay.

Reform also gave estimates for the amount of tax people working in warehouses and as prison officers could save.

The party has previously proposed ending Personal Independence Payments (Pip) for people with anxiety disorders. It has also said it would strip EU citizens of their right to claim benefits.

Savings made from these policies would pay for its tax cut for overtime hours, the party has argued.

Reform said it would change related EU law, such as Working Time Regulations, to ensure people can "take advantage of this tax break".

Last year, the Trade Unions Congress produced analysis which estimated that in 2024 3.8 million people worked an average of 7.2 unpaid hours a week, losing out on earnings of £8,000 per year.

The body said those in the teaching and health and care jobs were most likely to be working unpaid hours.

Treasury Chief Secretary Lucy Rigby said: "If Reform want people to take their unfunded, back-of-a-fag packet plans seriously, they should come clean about where their £40bn of cuts would fall and which public services would pay the price."

Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: "Hard work should be rewarded, which means getting taxes down in a fair and responsible way. Reform's proposal sets out no new savings... they keep promising things they cannot deliver."

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: "Farage's fantasy economics is a gamble our country cannot afford to take. The Liberal Democrats are the only party that used its opportunity in power to raise the income tax threshold taking millions of people out of paying tax altogether."

Helen Miller from the Institute of Fiscal Studies said the Reform proposal was "problematic in principle and practice", and "if the intention is to increase labour supply, it is not clear why an incentive should be targeted at increasing the hours of employees already working at least 40 hours a week".

Miller said it could also create an incentive to have more work classified as "overtime" in order to reduce tax payments, adding “evidence from a similar French policy is not encouraging".