From a recent Evening Standard, for "business rates" read "land value tax":
Labour needs to do more to help get rid of business rates
Rohan Silvas' comment article ("Government's refusal to help small businesses is destroying them", March 15) admirably reinforces the case against persisting with business rates.
In days of physical manufacturing, assessing rates in accordance with the rentable [sic] value of the premises may have had an approximate correspondence with the value of the businesses concerned.
nowadays, when a hedge fund can operate from the same space as a corner shop, it makes no sense whatever. It is the enemy of the start-up and subsequent rate rises, as Silva illustrates, can suddenly destroy viable enterprises. it is difficult to understand why Labour has not committed itself to abolishing this tax should it get into office and its replacement with one that is based on turnover and/or profit. Surely these are ostensibly Conservative clothes that are ready to be stolen?
There is a larger point that parliamentary initiatives on such matters should be easier to frame and pass in a way which binds the executive. The Brexit process has revealed how parliamentary scrutiny is trapped in critical mode.
Sue Broadhurst and Neil Harvey.
Reply by Jim Armitage, City Editor:
Dear Sue and Neil
You are right. Business Rates are holding back potentially great businesses.
The latest round of rises in London have [sic] left a clear mark on our high street as the numbers of vacant shops climb. The average business in the capital now has to find £33,000 a year just to cover its rates bill. That really hurts small operations that don;t have the deep pockets of national chains.
meanwhile, online retailers don;t pay high-street business rates at all. They pay them on their warehouses but these are in out-of-town areas where charges are lower.
Politicians won't scrap rates because they bring in 4.5 per cent of teh UK tax take. We need that cash for schools and hospitals...
See how many factual inaccuracies, misleading statements, crass generalisations and faulty leaps of logic you can spot, or the subtle contradictions between the two diatribes!!
Debate Magazine
