UK Small Businesses Renew Calls For Simplified Tax Regime

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

08 April 2002

In the run-up to Chancellor Gordon Brown's April 17 Budget, small business groups have renewed calls for a simplified tax regime for SMEs.

Representatives from the Forum of Private Business (FPB) met with Treasury officials last week to plead for a reduction in red tape for small and medium-sized enterprises. In a recent survey conducted by the FPB, over 60% of its 25,000 members stated that reducing the amount of compliance surrounding business taxation would be the most useful thing that the Chancellor could do in the Budget.

Speaking last week, FPB Director of Public Affairs, Garry Parker said that although small businesses welcomed the measures recently announced by Mr Brown, more action is needed in order to create a 'level playing field' for British business in the international arena. He called for the abolition of inheritance tax on business assets, simplification of the payroll system, and a reduction in the fuel duty burden for business motorists in rural areas.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has also called for simplification of the business tax regime, and has urged the Chancellor not to make major changes in order to fund increased investment in public services.

Frank Haskew, the Senior Technical Manager of the ICAEW's Tax Faculty explained that although many of the changes introduced by Gordon Brown of recent times are welcome, businesses need time to come to grips with the implementation of the new rules:

'The cumulative effect of so much new legislation is an even more complex and dangerously overloaded system. The ship is in danger of capsizing,' he warned, adding that: 'Businesses need a break. They are fed up with trying to fathom never-ending legislation.'

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