Clobbering small traders with VAT accounting

SIR – Businesses with turnover less than £85,000 are currently relieved of the burden of reporting details of their trading (VAT) every three months. This helps them remain competitive.

Government advisers at the Office for Tax Simplification (report, November 4) seem to think that small businesses deliberately do not expand their sales to avoid joining the VAT scheme. I doubt this.

Small enterprises will see the reduction of the threshold to £26,000 as a tax raid and Conservative-minded traders will place their vote elsewhere.

Gayton, Wirral

SIR – The thinking is that the current £85,000 threshold creates a “cliff edge” which prevents businesses from growing.

This is a novel argument: tax businesses more to help them grow. By the same logic, moving the cliff edge to £26,000 will stop businesses starting up at all.

Thame, Oxfordshire

SIR – It won’t be just small businesses which will suffer from the proposed VAT reforms but also their customers (voters), who will have to pay this tax.

Woodford, Cheshire

SIR – Perhaps small businesses that worry about the horrendous paperwork of VAT accounting should look at the VAT flat-rate scheme.

For businesses with a turnover of less than £150,000 it reduces the paperwork involved enormously. Tim Bochenski

Bramhall, Cheshire