State's heavy weaponry is trained on businesses!

 

I admit it. I’m tired and frustrated with thugs and gangsters.

Not ones that directly cause physical arm, thank goodness!

But I am tired, as a small business owner and employer, of always having to swim upstream against a self-evidently stupid state. Frustrated because no-one, either in Government or who wants to be in Government, ever seems to want to challenge the state’s vested self-interest.

Of course, you will say – well go and do something else instead. Put a stop to your nearly 40-years in business. Close it down. Retire.

I’m tempted to do that. But not before I again explain to my long-suffering readers, many of whom are business people, or who at the very least know that without business people, why the bloated British state would burst open and wither like a ridiculous party balloon.

Everyone recognises – now and after appalling damage has been done – the role of a self-serving and unaccountable state in the Post Office scandal, an entity wholly-owned by the Government.

Its ongoing denial of its own mistakes and efforts to bully and crush innocent sub-postmasters (i.e. small businesspeople) is certainly one of the greatest injustices that the state has inflicted on its citizens in recent years.

My own experience of a monolithic, defensive and arrogant state (funded by us taxpayers in case we forget) is only slightly less traumatic.

As a result of the last round of business rates revaluations, my warehouse business faces a massive hike in its costs base – almost overnight.

It does this because the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) lazily assumes that my operation is comparable to that of a giant Amazon warehouse, or similar.

Therefore, as of this month, business rates will represent 12% of my annual sales turnover, or a quarter of my yearly wage bill! I feel like I’m working to feed the bloated, unaccountable, and inefficient state system at the cost of myself and prospective employees.

I won’t repeat my thoughts as to why the whole damn system is unfair and is perversely taxing inputs and not business outputs. Instead, let me take you through my thoughts on the maze of state-backed unfairness when I decided to appeal against this revaluation.

Firstly, what gives Government agencies, such as the VOA, the right to over-charge or over-assess a legitimate business, and then expect that business to have to appeal at their own cost, without recourse to compensation or expenses? 

Secondly, I believe that their excessive over-valuation of my, and other business premises, to be a vexatious attempt to bully businesses into paying-up. Business Rates Valuations are supposed to represent the open-market rent payable by the business in question, but the VOA ignores that basic principle. 

Yet, the  VOA, having conducted the most superficial desktop comparison – no site visits to ascertain exactly what we do – expects us to gather our resources and appeal. 

In short, this is pure gangsterism, with all the heavy weaponry held by the state and trained on us. 

The process itself is rigged. It allows just ONE chance to appeal the valuation – if you or your agent are unsuccessful, you will have to wait until the next valuation period in three or four-years’ time. 

And if you are successful, then much of the money saved is eaten away by your agents’ fees. They don’t come cheap. 

Furthermore, the state never likes to lose. There is a feeling around that if an appeal is successful and the state has lost out, then the business will be targeted even more sternly during the next valuation period. 

Such unreasonable behaviour is systemic across the state. 

As I was writing this column, I saw that Suffolk Chamber of Commerce had issued a report into R&D Tax Reliefs. 

In this case, it looks as if it’s His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that is doing the bullying. 

The report identifies that the lack of knowledgeable experts at the HMRC, plus the imposition of an overly strict compliance regime, is causing many legitimate companies’ most recent claims to be delayed and/or refused, with others fearful that previously successful claims from previous years might now be challenged.

Understandably, 46% of respondents to a Chamber survey are now deterred from making future claims based on their latest experience.

Sounds all too familiar to me. The state wants to squeeze money from us and make it as forbidding and painful as possible to argue for something fairer and sustainable.

And let’s not forget the army of self-employed citizens currently being threatened by HMRC with IR35 rules as to how how they run their businesses, with many having to fend-off costly and time-consuming retrospective claims for tax.

What will all those faceless and useless bureaucrats do when there are no businesses left to bully? I hate to think. 

Perhaps they’ll come after you next?

First published in the www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk on Thursday, 4th April 2024.