[Silhouette]

The only real fix is to tax business owner income at the same (or, ideally, higher) rate as employees.

That seems like the perfect way to kill entrepreneurialism and flexible labour. Right now it costs almost nothing to go through the legal formalities of forming a limited company in the UK. However in terms of personal risk and investing your own savings to get the business started and the opportunity costs it can be a huge gamble for anyone who could otherwise be a well-paid professional employee.

We need some people to take those risks and make those investments. Some of those businesses will succeed and then they'll create new jobs and wealth and pay more tax. Of course that also includes employing people in the vast majority who don't want to take those risks and prefer the stability of regular employment.

If there's no reward for taking those risks and making those investments or (as with IR35 umbrella arrangements today) if you're actively penalised for working in a way that's economically useful then obviously it's going to deter most people from doing it. In the long term that doesn't help any of us.