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back to article Small biz demands some relief from Darling

Alistair Darling's much-leaked cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent has been welcomed by the small business community - although there are worries about how it will be implemented. Darling is expected to unveil the plan this afternoon in a pre-budget statement, along with a raft of other measures to help individuals …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
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    All in favour of lowering VAT,

    though normal prices will just be raised to compensate, but why the extra tax on the high-earners? I mean they're the ones using the very least government funds and paying the very most.

    And yes, they earn more than you, communism's great, blah de blah. But the fact is that the Government is taking money from the public to pay for their own overreaching projects and stupidity.

    Why not tax the low earners more? There's more of them, so a smaller % tax could be levvied, and you'd encourage people to earn more and be proud of it, not have their accountants shove their extra earnings offshore. Hit £20k and your income rises hugely due to less "low earner tax" is surely a better incentive to work hard and get a better job than "Work really hard, then we'll take your money after our next fuckup".

    Alternatively just tax everybody the same. Stop picking on broad groups of the public.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
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    Fine words butter no parsnips

    "He said government help should be designed to "get money to real engineering not financial engineering - we can't depend on that anymore.""

    Well speaking as a Precision Engineer, I can state with certainty that even if this were accomplished it is 30 years too late.

    British engineering manufacturers are forced to find a niche that the Chinese aren't interested in and hope to make a decent living before the niche closes.

    British businessmen don't want to run dirty factories. Instead they want to invest in having the Chinese run factories for them.

    Show me British owned and run civilian heavy shipbuilding, locomotive works, automotive works or aircraft works if you can. It all left decades ago.

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  3. Jim

    Labour was never the engineers friend

    Pardon ? So Old Labour was the small biz / manufacturers friend ? Old labour loathed small bunsiness, and enterprise in general. Remember the power cuts / British Leyland / secondary pickets ? Coal gone, shipbuilding gone, car manufacturing gone, British steel in the record books as the biggest ever loss maker in the UK ?

    Small businesses workers at the time could arrive at work to find their office beseiged by donkey-jacketed striking workers bussed in from miles away, not even a part of the same industry. Nice.

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  4. Alex Simmons
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    VAT change is going to cost more than it saves

    Changing the vat on every signle computer system in the country, i dont see how this could save businesses that are already struggling money??

    Even for the companies who dont have a computer system to change the repricing of every item in the shop is going to be costly and take time. My guess is most compaies wont pass the cost saving on to customers as it will cost them more to implenet a 2.5% saving than the extra business that reducing a tin of beens by 2p is going to make.

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  5. EvilJason
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    You think 15% vat will make a difference?

    All the reduction in vat will do is make more money for the big stores....do you really think that the vat safing will be passed on to the customer?

    The prices will stay the same but the vat will be lower for the companies. Any product that the vat is payed later rather than at the till will not be changed.

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  6. Simon Painter

    Labour just can't do maths

    Taxes raised must equal or be greater than the cost of public services. Imports should be less than or equal to the exports.

    New Labour (and old Labour for that matter) just don't seem to grasp that.

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