From their email Bulletin of today:
Last year, empty rate relief [i.e. vacant commercial premises get a reduction in the Business Rates they have to pay] was worth £1.2 billion to businesses, and with high vacancy rates across the UK, many landlords may simply to choose to demolish empty properties instead of paying the new rates. This would mean fewer properties for business to relocate to or expand in, making recovery more difficult.
Savers who are funding their retirement with rental income from a small number of commercial properties will also be hit despite receiving no income from empty properties.
Ho hum. It's not clear to me how people can 'fund their retirement' with no income from empty commercial premises? Whether or not they have to pay Business Rates, they still have to pay interest on the loan they took out to buy it, and even if they own it mortgage-free, wouldn't they be better off selling it and buying something that does produce a regular income?
And aren't the TPA confusing 'business' (i.e. people organising themselves to produce goods and services for a profit) with 'people who own commercial premises' (for example, 'savers who are funding their retirement with assets that generate no income')? Buying a building and leaving it standing vacant is hardly a 'wealth generating business activity', is it?
Meh
3 hours ago
6 comments:
The TPA have gone nuts recently.
AC1, I suspect that their new financial backers are from the "property industry".
Buying a building and leaving it standing vacant is hardly a 'wealth generating business activity', is it?
True but neither is taxing it either?
LOL - my word verification was 'rente'
NL, leaving a building vacant actually destroys wealth.
So IF the tax on an empty building is
a) Sufficient to goad the landlord into letting it out again (which increases the landlord's net income, as by definition zero rental income will always be less than rental income minus Business Rates),
b) Less than the wealth that would be destroyed were it vacant
c) Used to reduce other taxes/reduce the deficit
THEN overall, wealth increases.
ELSE IF
d) condition a) is not met and
e) the landlord is happy to pay on an empty building
THEN by definition c) is still met and levying the tax leads to an overall increase in wealth.
Why the apparent surprise - so the TPA has decided that some "taxpayer funded subsidies for some people" - special people of course - is "perfectly ok" ... It will of course in recognition of this shortly be changing its name to the "Property Owning Taxpayers Alliance"
Anon, it's not "apparent surprise" on my part, it's being forced to face up to the grim reality that they are just as corrupt as every other political grouping :-(
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