No company
Adam Creighton 7:21pmThe Chancellor waffled on about the millions of new companies created in the past ten years, yet these ‘new’ companies are simply a legal re-branding: sole-traders and partnerships that have become companies for tax reasons alone. If you look at the data for total UK businesses, there is a surge in the proportion of companies and a matching decline in sole traders and partnerships since 1997. But nothing real has gone on here; Brown’s and Darling’s new companies are simply the same old businesses re-branded but having to jump through a whole set of administrative hoops to take advantage of the 0 and 10 per cent starting rates for companies introduced in 2000 but recently removed.
Darling’s promise to give 30 per cent of government contracts to small firms is symptomatic of this obsession with definitions. By all means look at the tenders of small firms, but give the contract to the most efficient firm. Firms should not be in business for tax reasons but for the quality of their services, products and ideas. Their size should be determined by economic factors beyond the control of the government.
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naddo
March 12th, 2008 8:25pm Report this commentI am one of the poor deluded souls who became a limited company on the promise of government help and attention. We had a nice carrot of the first £10k of profit free of corporation tax as a nice reason to incorporate, which made up for all the VAT we then collected for the revenue Then guess what? 2 years after the cost of becoming a limited company, our government created £10k tax free incentive becomes a loop hole, we are supposed to have been using it to "invest" in new ideas rather than counter acting the costs of running a limited company. Suddenly we are all fiddling our taxes. In reality, only the criminally insane who run small businesses trust a word this government say.
Neil Turner
March 13th, 2008 8:03am Report this commentI started a partnership in 1997 at the start of the Blair era I have received not one jot of help during this time. No incentives, advice. The proportion of tax we pay has steadily risen, and the controls increased All I have achieved has been despite them, not because of them. How dare New Labour congratulate itself ?
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