MISFIT
T Death and Taxes
here it was in the Monday morning’s post in its finely crafted buff envelope with the Borough’s logo on it. This year’s business rate demand, which to be fair, turned out to be exactly the same as the amount they took last year. Our Council is nothing if not caring
and benevolent. The demand was accompanied by a booklet explaining how they
intend to spend the money they extract from me; it would have been better if they had kept quiet. As I read it my bile rose. Not so much the usual items, like police and education and social services, but a list of special projects, including a regional park which I hardly knew existed, as well as a new tramway system mainly serving the borough next door. A careful read through the leaflet revealed absolutely nothing which might contribute to the prosperity of my business. There was a rate relief for small businesses, which I latched onto with avidity until I realised that small businesses meant microscopic businesses. This led me to consider the benefits bestowed by our
local government. True, they collect our waste, but they charge for it. Years ago they cheerfully collected our old boxes, but now they have to be bundled up carefully so they can be recycled neatly. Well, that’s the theory, except when they started to charge we stopped asking customers if they wanted the box and just gave it to them whether they liked it or not, so the Council does not get much out of that trick. Then I noticed I am being charged a few pence for flood
The small sum that originally got you a hour’s parking has got bigger
and bigger, and is now so large they have stopped people putting money in the meters, I imagine because there isn’t room for the coins in there any more, or may be because our less honest citizens have found a way to remove it. The new idea is making citizens pay by phone, which means mobile. On being asked what drivers without mobiles would do the leader of
our Council opined that no-one who had a car did not have a mobile phone, which shows how much he is in touch with his constituents. Many of our customers are ladies of a certain age who have been
given mobiles by their children but either do not want, or in some cases, do not know how to use them. I am fortunate in having a friend living nearby who drives to work and
lets me have the use of his driveway while he is not using it, but our customers don’t have this advantage and have to use meters.
defences. Now I don’t mind helping all those people who built their houses on flood plains, after all I’m not into drowning my customers, and I understand that paying for social services to look after old people helps stop them coming in and going through the motions of buying shoes, just so they can get out of the cold. I don’t mind paying for libraries which serve the same purpose, but looking at the various recipients of the benefits of municipal largesse there seems to be only one citizen who doesn’t get any. Me. Well, I suppose I can afford it, so I should shut up and join the Big Society. But it isn’t quite that simple. The rates have not gone up, but the
charges I pay for the services I get have increased, quite substantially. The charge for collecting rubbish has gone up by what the government says is the rate of inflation, which we all know is not true, but as I said earlier, we have dodged that charge and now the Council have to collect the same boxes from our customers when they throw them out at their expense.
I believe what we did is called tax avoidance. Naughty. But what has gone up and which does affect me, is parking. For many
years our street was meter free because it is a side street, but then we asked for meters because commuters parked outside all day so our customers could not park near us. At that time the cost of parking was nominal, but someone in the Town Hall noticed that easy money was coming in, and got addicted to cash flow in the same way that someone who likes an occasional drink gradually turns into an alcoholic.
10 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • MAY 2011
Don’t laugh. Our borough is reckoned to be one of the better administered ones, and I’m not laughing because this latest municipal joke is definitely hitting trade and at a time when it is not that wonderful anyway.
I have only tried to pay by phone twice. In the first case a gentleman
was cutting down a tree a few feet away from me, and opened up with his chainsaw every time the person, or perhaps an electronic voice or someone in India at the other end of the line said anything. The second time, on a Saturday, I got a recorded message that the office was closed until Monday. Don’t laugh. Our borough is reckoned to be one of the better
administered ones, and I’m not laughing because this latest municipal joke is definitely hitting trade and at a time when it is not that wonderful anyway. This made me start to add up the cost of those who rule us, who
seem never to have heard about geese and golden eggs. Apart from local taxes and charges, there is PAYE and NI which, apart from being included the price of my shoes, I have to administer for nothing. Then there is a mere twenty per cent VAT, also worked out by me at my expense. I wonder if our customers realise that a fifth of what they pay for their shoes goes straight to HM Treasury. If we add in the tax on the fuel to get the shoes to us I am surprised there is anything left for me. Still, I don’t have to worry about Capital Gains Tax when I eventually
retire and hopefully sell the business. They’ll have taken all the Gains already.
www.footweartoday.co.uk
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