Our public services are collapsing. Money has to be raised either through taxation or borrowing. Taxation has to be fair.
The first Rachel Reeves budget hit small businesses hard.
- hike in National Insurance
- loss of Business Rates discount
- hike in Minimum Wage
A triple whammy that hit small businesses hard.
I’ve no sympathy for those whining Minimum Wage. If your business model relies on paying poverty wages , on exploiting people, then you have not a viable business model.
Our High Streets are dying, our city centres turned into wastelands of vape shops, gambling shops, Turkish barbers and Vietnamese nail bars .
Specialty coffee shops are quirky. No two are the same. What they do have in common, they care about coffee, they are passionate about coffee.
Speciality coffee shops are oasis of hope, where you will be served exceptional coffee, where passionate about coffee, not only recycle money into the local economy, but pay a higher price for their coffee beans, which helps the growers in poor countries.
But even these entrepreneurs are struggling. They are facing unfair competition from global chains that fiddle their tax. Unfair competition from the same global chains with their Drive Thrus on retail parks where rents and rateable values are lower than city centres.
What can be done?
Domestic consumers have had their energy charges capped. Still too high, especially when considering their excessive profits, but capped nevertheless. Small businesses do not have their energy bills capped. Running an espresso machine is energy intensive.
A coffee shop that lies in a once thriving High Street, where now retail desolation, boarded up shops, the coffee shop should not have the same rateable values it once had. There should be re-evaluation to reflect the changed circumstances.
Re-evaluation should apply to all businesses in run down town centres.
Retail parks should have their rateable values revised upwards.
The tax loopholes exploited by global corporations should be closed.
Levy a revenue tax on Big Tech. This includes tax dodging coffee chains.
Impose a Wealth Tax.
BIDs , Businesses Investment Districts, are killing our town centres. The BID Levy extortion racket is killing struggling local businesses. BIDs lack transparency, lack accountability, and are undemocratic. The BID Levy a percentage of rateable value.
Contact your local Member of Parliament, provide a list of the specialty coffee shops in their constituency, invite them to pay a visit, try the coffee, have a chat with baristas , owners and clientele,engage in discussion, what government policies are needed. Or are Members of Parliament going to sit back and preside over our town centres turned into wastelands, as has already happened to too many small towns across the country?
Support your local independent specialty coffee shop, not corporate chains.
Keithpp's Blog 