From yesterday's City AM:
TIM Martin, the outspoken executive chairman of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain he founded in 1979, has called for the Treasury to rein in an “unsustainable” level of tax levied on pubs. Wetherspoon’s tax bill tallied to £453.1m in the 13 weeks to 21 October, compared with a profit after tax of just £46.8m. This included VAT of £204.8m and excise duty of £120.2m, the firm added...
“The biggest danger to the pub industry is the tax disparity between supermarkets and pubs, creating a serious and unsustainable competitive disadvantage,” Martin said in a statement, repeating comments made at the time of the firm’s full-year results in September. “In addition, our pubs pay far higher VAT than those of our nearest neighbours, Ireland and France, as well as having the second highest rates of excise duty on beer and wine in Europe.”
Mr Martin politely overlooks the impact of the smoking ban, and as far as taxes are concerned has spectacularly missed the point. As it happens, there is no such thing as a special 'tax on pubs', and alcohol duty is charged at exactly the same rate on booze bought in a supermarket and booze bought in pubs. So by elimination, he can't be complaining about those.
The idea that British pubs pay far higher VAT than Ireland or France (who recently reduced the VAT rate on catering etc) is irrelevant, it's not as if yer British bloke pops over to a French or Irish pub for a swift pint on his way home from work, but at least they are getting a bit closer.
In truth, the tax which is harming pubs most is of course VAT, the article tells us that they pay nearly twice as much VAT as they do excise duty, and of course they pay far more VAT per unit alcohol than supermarkets do because VAT applies to the whole purchase price. What pubs should be arguing for, if anything, is a reduction in VAT and a corresponding increase in alcohol duty, which would reduce the price differential between pubs and supermarkets enormously. And an end to the smoking ban, of course.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
What is he complaining about?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
To be mischievous, would you then support the campaign by the hospitality industry to reduce their VAT rate to 5%?
Of course he won't mention the smoking ban being one of the zealots who campaigned for it.
In fact I recall he unilaterally declared Wetherspoons pubs non smoking a year prior to the ban.Only to see takings dive so dramatically as people decamped to the still smoking pubs he reversed it within months. Then declaring he would wait for a 'level playing field'.
I stay away from the 'spoons' as there 'not quite out of date beer' gives me the shits
C, yes of course, I'd support anybody's campaign to reduce VAT, it's the worst tax of all and this is yet another example. If the price of that is slightly higher tax on booze to 'level the playing field' between supermarkets and pubs, then so be it.
The fact that I mainly drink at home because of the smoking ban and so will end up worse off is my tough luck.
PC, I used to quite like Wetherspoon's, the absence of music was a plus, but if he actually campaigned FOR the smoking ban then all the more reason to despise him.
Whist being pro anti smoking always, In fact he campaigned for the TOTAL ban on realising that he would lose out if the limited ban as suggested in the manifesto was enacted.
BBC News Jan 2005: Wetherspoon pubs ban smoking
The man is a twunt of the first order
and yet (although not quoted personally) Daily Telegraph March 2008: Wetherspoon fumes over smoking ban
PC, to quote from that Telegraph article:
"Referring to the ongoing debate over alcohol abuse in the UK, Mr Martin said that celebrities and top sportsmen were setting a bad example. That "poor behaviour" was often replicated by the public celebrating birthdays and at hen and stag parties, he said."
So he is indeed a bansturbator. Any normal person would have pointed out that alcohol abuse is no big deal and we only think that sportsmen behave worse than they used to is because in olden times it wasn't reported.
Post a Comment