Most councillors and officers don't have a clue about business. If they did they would understand that having to pay a 40% of rental value in business rates is a killer. But why would the Council want to change things? Of the 100% raised RBK&C gets a 25% kickback.
This reception to 'celebrate' Borough business was hosted by the Mayor. What was the point? God only knows.
Joe Powell tells the Dame that Business Rates are unfit for purpose and Labour will be scrapping them.
Conservatives have 14 long years to deal with this greedy and unfair tax and yet have done nothing....so much for being the 'party of business'!
Where does this extra funding go?
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling the Council is using it for general purposes. It certainly is not using it to help the business community
ReplyDeleteLet's hope that business leaders vote Labour then. I think most of them are unlikely to do so.
ReplyDeleteI agree Business Rates are a disaster and need to be reformed.
What concerns me most is that large corporations and other businesses are not being taxed efficiently. Independent economic think tanks estimate that the Exchequer loses about £15 billion a year through businesses not paying their fair share through aggressive tax avoidance and a lack of staff at the Revenue to police and pursue matters. This is what Jacob Rees Mogg calls and "enterprising economy."
Tax avoidance needs to be stamped out along with those who sail close to the wind in presenting their tax affairs to the Revenue. The DWP has an army of officials to go after those who commit benefit fraud - clamping down on Social Security fraud and abuse goes down with the Tory faithful.
The trouble with the prospective Labour Government (which I long for) is that it wants to stick to Tory Tax arrangements and do the Tories job better than the Tories would have done.
The much needed economic boost through the Green Agenda initially proposed by Labour could well and truly get off the ground if the Revenue collected taxes efficiently. The Revenue were quick to charge me £ 1.29 in interest a few years ago which of course I immediately paid - see how they go after those with modest means rather than the big guns of commerce and industry- why because it is easy to do so.
Of course they are using it for general purposes. That 25% kickback is not hypothecated. Government reduced the revenue support grant to Councils when the kickback was introduced.
ReplyDeleteMy shop in RBKC in the 80s and 90s paid about 25% of the rent in business rates. That was just about do-able. But In 2016 Chancellor of the Exchequer Hammond changed the dynamic to a proportion of the property’s market value, and I wrote to him to give my view as a landlord and as a previous shop lease holder paying rates to say he had been misguided. It’s killing our shops in these times. Greedy landlords don't help either.
ReplyDeleteAt least Joe Powell is looking at business interests and recognises the importance of business in a dynamic economy.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, Emma Dent Coad is economically illiterate. She once said, Rebeca Long Bailey knows a lot about economics." I would not expect an MP to describe someone's economic prowess in such terms.
Emma wants to be in with Corbyn and is like a love sick adolescent over him. She wants to put a spanner in the works if she is returned by playing stupid games - sucking up to Corbyn, Abbott, Long Bailey, McDonnell et al.
What is Emma's policy on Business Rates? She has no policies to offer.
Flicka has not done much to get Business Rates on the agenda. She was in Boris's gang and then made sure she got in to Rishi's gang.
ReplyDeleteEmma Dent Coad has no excuse for her ignorance of the barriers to businesses in the borough; particularly small businesses. Many years ago she was a reasonable human being. Now she's a loon!
ReplyDeleteGranted 15.25.
DeleteEDC is typical of a politician who has always been out of her depth politically but, nonetheless, spurred on by her massive ego. She could not believe that she was elected in 2017. From the moment she went through Westminster's hallowed portals, she strutted her left wing stuff to ingratiate herself with the loony left; including many Trots. Trots do not understand business and Emma is typical of that clan.
When are you people going to stop talking about that sad, unhappy woman. There are dozens ( if not hundreds ) of local people whose political role and influence is now so much more important than that of Mrs Dent. Time for us all to look to the future and leave former politicians to their cuttings
DeleteNo way. If that "sad" and "unhappy" Trotskyite woman's ego cannot take it, she should quit politics.
DeleteExactly - for her good & everyone else !
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