Business rate bailiff bullies
Councils sending debt collectors to 81,000 firms a year as owners struggle to pay crippling taxes
BAILIFFS are being sent to more than 81,000 companies a year as owners struggle to pay their business rates.
Councils used debt collectors to raid 222 properties a day last year to chase unpaid rates, research reveals.
They sought to take away firms’ goods and sell them at auction in order to settle the debts.
The huge numbers suggest shopkeepers are finding it hard to pay what they owe, amid fast-rising rates and brutal competition from foreign internet rivals such as Amazon.
It will pile more pressure on ministers to reform the tax, and follows the Daily Mail’s campaign to save our high streets in a crisis that has seen 50,000 retail jobs lost this year.
Labour MP Wes Streeting said: ‘The combination of Tory cuts to council budgets and struggling high streets is leading to cash-strapped councils sending bailiffs round to cashstrapped businesses. No one wins in that scenario.
‘It’s time for the Government to help save our high streets by cutting business rates, and giving councils the funding they need.’
Since 2012, councils have been able to keep half the business rates raised in their area, encouraging them to pursue firms more aggressively for unpaid cash.
Robert Hayton, of management consultants Altus Group, which obtained the figures, warned that the rush to squeeze money out of companies had even seen some dragged to court to pay the wrong amount. ‘Councils are taking enforcement action much earlier,’ he said.
‘This sometimes leads to companies with manifestly incorrect demands receiving summonses and facing enforcement action. The prob- lem is also exacerbated by understaffing within some councils, and the inordinate delays that this creates in dealing with ratepayers.’
Altus used Freedom of Information laws to get details on how many business premises were referred to bailiffs in 201718 by 264 English councils.
Using the data provided, it estimated that bailiffs were sent to 81,317 premises, compared with 83,710 the year before. However it calculated that 6.5 per cent of firms liable for rates faced having their goods seized, up from 6 per cent the year before.
Birmingham City Council referred the most premises to bailiffs over the year, at 3,864, down from 4,414 in 2016-17.
Manchester referred 2,667 premises – the second highest and up 38 per cent.
The councils of Liverpool, Coventry, Hounslow and Brent all made more than 1,000 referrals to bailiffs. Birmingham and Manchester are among a small number of councils that get to retain 100 per cent of business rates as part of a Government pilot.
More widely, ministers are planning to increase the share kept by local authorities across England from 50 per cent to 75 per cent in 2020.
A Government spokesman said: ‘It is important that councils are proportionate in enforcement and use bailiffs only as a last resort.
‘ We are introducing over £10billion worth of business rate support by 2023.’
Last month the Mail revealed how councils are using private firms to spy on businesses suspected of paying rates which are too low.
Almost half of English councils are using investigation company Analyse Local to sift through satellite images.
WHILE light on detail, there is a great deal of common sense in what Mrs May will say about foreign aid in Cape Town today, on the first leg of her African tour.
This newspaper agrees, for example, that it is private sector firms, and the spread of good governance, which will transform poorer countries – rather than endless handouts.
Rightly too, Mrs May says she is ‘ unashamed’ about the need for aid spending to support Britain’s national interest and promote trade.
For too long, Britain has been naive about using aid as a tool of foreign policy, while powers such as China invest billions in African firms and resources, and exert far greater influence.
Nothing will change this paper’s view that a target for aid spending is perverse and wrong, and only encourages waste. But as long as we are setting aside £14billion a year, Mrs May is right to encourage cold calculation in how it is spent.
It’s another question entirely whether that message gets home to those officials who dole out fortunes to corrupt regimes and – to give just one of the most absurd examples – signed off millions for Ethiopia’s version of the Spice Girls! THE Mail, for one, will shed no tears over the impending collapse of payday loan firm Wonga, which cynically traded on people’s desperation after the credit crunch. Little better than a loan shark, it charged interest rates as high as 5,853 per cent. Thankfully, its ruthlessness has been its undoing, as compensation claims mount from those desperate souls handed small fortunes they would struggle to repay. If Wonga does go down, it’ll be good riddance. AFTER years in which fraud and error in the benefits system fell, this year’s increase – to an eye- watering £3.8billion – will enrage every taxpayer in the land. Have ministers run up the white flag on benefit cheats? THAT 81,000 firms faced a knock on the door from bailiffs last year over unpaid business rates shows the truly crippling toll of this unfair tax – which is devastating High Streets across the country. Are you listening, Mr Hammond?