Rishi’s online sales tax won’t save the high street

Imagine you run an independent store on the high street. Your business has already been ravaged by repeated lockdowns, which boosted the likes of Amazon at your expense. You are already at a huge disadvantage to online retailers because of your fixed costs. At great risk, you have invested in setting up your own online operation – which obviously costs you a lot more per unit of sales than it costs the online giants. In your shift online you have effectively become shunted up a side street, while Amazon, eBay and the like occupy the prime spots on the high street.

How, then, are you going to react to the news that the Chancellor is looking to hit the new side of your business with a two percent online sales tax? True, it will hit Amazon as well, but it isn’t going to do you much good, or help to shift the taxation system in your favour.