Flexible working businesses have alerted Chancellor Rachel Reeves about potential property tax increases that could jeopardise thousands of jobs. Over 60 operators of serviced offices and workspaces, representing 27,000+ businesses, expressed “urgent and deeply serious concern” in a letter. The Valuation Office Agency has reclassified these spaces, leading to higher business rates and loss of reliefs for over 150,000 SMEs. Jane Sartin, executive director of the Flexible Space Association, stated: “Operators are being hit with sudden, steep increases in business rates.” The agency cited case law as justification for the changes.

Source: The Times. Image courtesy of Freepik.com

BFS Comment:

Yet another burden for SMEs to bare. Why is it that politicians and particularly this Government cannot see the logic in supporting those who are among the true ‘wealth generators’ in the UK rather than imposing more tax burdens on them.

What we need is for our businesses to grow, thereby generating wealth and employment. A much better solution to balance the budget is to eliminate wastage and inefficiency, particularly in the non-wealth-generating sectors of the economy. Once the national debt has been brought down to manageable proportions, then one can think about distributing largess to ‘The Needy’.

In theory this Government has a further 4 years ‘in power’. This will not be long enough to eliminate the National Debt, but it would be long enough to  eliminate a large number of our SMEs who represent a significant proportion of our wealth generators in the future! One result of this will be decreases in UK production leading to increased imports and unemployment!

What we need is more pro-business action. Real solutions NOT resolutions!

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