Business rates are killing small shops like mine
The business rates system (Mail) is destroying our high Streets. All the businesses in my street saw our rateable values double at the last review in 2007, because the street was reckoned to be much more desirable — as a result of traders having all spent money on their premises.
My rateable value went from £6,200 to £12,500, doubling at a stroke what I have to pay. When my full-time member of staff left I didn’t replace her — I couldn’t afford to. Meanwhile, most sole traders can’t just walk away from their businesses — they’re tied to a lease, payable for its full term.
Charity shops pay either no business rates at all or just a token amount. Some charities have two shops on each high Street and will be getting this extraordinarily valuable rates relief on both premises (while their chief executives are being paid vast salaries).
Over the past ten years, the high Street has seen great changes, many as a result of the unfair challenges it faces from internet retailers, who have few, if any, premises overheads. So they pay no business rates and no additional charges for refuse removal and only residential electricity/gas charges.
Larger internet retailers operate from business parks with much lower rateable values. I have a lingerie shop where my expertise in fitting is often sought so customers can then go away and buy online.
Independent retailers just want a playing field level with competitors.
GWYNETH TOOKE, Lytham, Lancs.
Tax return torture
ChAnCeLLOr George Osborne says it takes 40 minutes to file a self-assessment return online and that under his new system it will take only ten minutes.
The 40 minutes is correct — provided there are no hitches with the system. But the preparation of the accounts to get to the point where you sit down for 40 minutes can take days or even weeks.
Several of my clients send or receive more than 100 invoices a day and they have to dig out copies. Then they must total up cash payments and receipts, calculate motor expenses or mileage, VAT, rent, rates, heat and light, insurance and Write Down Allowance.
All this has to be done by the business owner or his accountant. no small operation can spare the time from running the business to calculate all of these.
When will this system, like real Time Information, have to be filed weekly or lead to fines? Will the hMrC computer be able to cope with all the additional data input? It’s barely holding its own now.
Far from assisting small businesses, Osborne is imposing an additional burden that could cripple traders and the hMrC computers. Amateur accountants? Bah!
HUGH W. DUNLOP, Glasgow.
Labour’s French lesson
My DAuGhTer and her family moved to France, where my son-inlaw is a self- employed builder, handyman, gardener and tree surgeon, 11 years ago.
To make a reasonable living, he works 70 hours a week.
In the 2012 French election, Francois hollande ( socialist) promised the people of France a land of milk and honey with a huge increase in the minimum wage, higher pensions and full employment. how could he pay for it all? easy: tax the rich — after all, they have the broadest shoulders.
The French people believed him and voted him in as their new president. however, when the promises were due to be kept, things changed. Many owners of small and medium- sized French companies simply sold their businesses and left France with the money raised to start a new business abroad.
As a result, welfare payments rose with the increase in unemployment while income from taxation went down. To balance the books, taxation on the ordinary French worker — including my son-in-law — went up while, with less in the system, most workers saw a decline in their weekly income, further hit by this increased taxation. hollande is now the least popular president of all time.
On Budget day, I listened to ed Miliband and ed Balls making almost identical promises to those made by hollande in 2012.
So people of Britain, remember: vote in ed Miliband and you have him for five years by which time he can complete the job Blair/ Brown almost did — making Britain bankrupt. MALCOLM BOUCHIER,
Louth, Lincs..
Pigeon fancier
IF There is to be a national bird to represent Britain (Mail), it can only be the homing pigeon. They saved hundreds of lives in two world wars; hundreds died on active service for Britain and many won medals for bravery.
In peacetime, they raise thousands of pounds for charity and in the past few years, racing from Spain and flying across hundreds of miles of ocean, they have beaten France, Germany and holland — which is more than our overpaid footballers have done.
W. JOYCE, Theydon Bois, Essex.
Police overkill
We’re asked why it was thought necessary to send five police cars to arrest Adam Johnson over allegations of sexual activity with a 15-year- old. now we know why officers are never available when we need them: they’re too busy nosing around footballers’ homes.
Looking back a bit, it was reported that no fewer than 15 police cars attended an apparently minor collision which cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins had with a van. It was suggested their drivers might have been hoping to get his autograph.
A few months ago, when an 81-year- old male pensioner was murdered in a residential home near Thirsk, north yorkshire. While it was obviously a serious matter, it didn’t warrant sending umpteen police cars and further officers in two vans.
Did the police think the home’s residents were waiting behind the doors to attack them with their walking sticks and Zimmer frames? We’re constantly being told that the police are low on resources and manpower — but I have serious doubts about this.
PETER J. TEAL, Doncaster.
Corruption UK
When I was growing up, I used to think many other countries were far more corrupt than Britain. But I’ve come to realise that a lot of things in our garden aren’t so rosy.
The list of scandals just gets longer: the banks, hillsborough, Baby P, Chilcot, Jimmy Savile, cash for questions, paedophile rings, rotherham, Stafford and Morecambe hospitals.
Always, it’s the same old response: a public inquiry.
These drag the matter out for years, take the sting out of it and it’s hoped that some of the culprits and/or victims are retired or dead by the time the report comes out.
no wonder the ‘ establishment’ was all in favour of a clampdown on the media. Phone-hacking pales into insignificance compared to some of these other events.
R. BARNES, Bolton, Lancs.
The claim game
The report that a judge awarded £33,000 to a burglar who fell off his cell bed (Mail) deserves a closer look. The burglar got only £3,000 but the legal eagles who brought the case for him got £30,000.
So it could be said that in making the award the judge was just ‘looking after his own’.
CHRIS WILSON, London NW9.
Poldark and handsome
VArIOuS middle-aged female journalists (Mail) have admitted that Aidan Turner, the actor playing the eponymous hero in the remake of Poldark, is really rather dishy and good looking.
So I trust that if, in future, any of their male colleagues salivate over an actress 20 of 30 years their junior, they won’t be accused of being lecherous old men.
PHILIP READ, Epsom, Surrey.
Flirt with me, Susanna!
In DeFenCe of flirting Susanna reid (Mail), attractive women have been doing this ever since Adam and eve. She can flutter her eyelashes at me any time — and I’m 83. I’ll probably be immune in about seven years’ time.
RONALD ASH, Stalbridge, Dorset.
No-go Goa
The advice to ‘ grab a bargain beach break in Goa’ (Mail) omitted the news that an Indian visa will cost £145 each from April.
no wonder there are so few people on the Indian beaches.
JOHN NESBIT, address supplied.