No, there is no justification for that.
Nor is there any justification why employees get a PAYE credit, but self-employed don't.
Brendan
I do not think it is that straight forward, Mr. Burgess.
I think we all must admit that there remains, to a certain degree, a lack of trust with regards to whether or not the self-employed are paying tax on all of their earnings.
It is entirely wrong to imply that all self-employed fail to pay tax on all of their earnings, but yet there are regular conversations with self employed tradesmen for example as to "what their cash price is". This in isolation does not prove that the earnings coming from these deals subsequently does not get declared and the appropriate tax paid, but leaves people wondering.
By extension to the above line of thinking, the suspicion leads to other sectors of the population wanting to see the self employed taxed more heavily, in my view.
As for the PAYE annual allowance, I think this is in part a credit given to the PAYE sector, to acknowledge the fact that they have their tax deducted at source during the year and do not get the benifit of their funds in full, until an annual tax payment must be made. Is the current figure the correct one to reflect whatever benefit this conveys, possibly not, but I do think in principal it is deserving.
Ultimately, I think the method in which the self-employed invoice, get paid and subsequently pay tax on their earnings needs to be changed to remove the doubt in peoples minds as to whether their earnings are ultimately all declared and taxed. Furthermore, that tax is paid on an ongoing basis by the self-employed and not just once a year (possibly a monthly payment with a final end of year adjustment, once the annual return is done ?). Once this has been done, I think the justification for different treatment between PAYE & Self Employed workers will have been removed almost entirely.