Entrepreneurs have lost their appetite! (From Business in Dorset)

Entrepreneurs have lost their appetite!

3:14pm Monday 4th February 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share

THE Forum of Private Business (FPB) campaigns manager, Matt Hardman, said recently “that high taxes and excessive regulation are the main barriers to the growth of small and medium-sized businesses with overwhelming evidence that owners of smaller firms believe that cutting taxes would help them grow and create jobs,"

The tax rate for bigger companies was cut in the 2007 Budget but smaller firms' corporation tax went up from 19 per cent to 22 per cent - combined with the rise in employers' National Insurance Contributions (NICs) that took place in 2003.

Research carried out by the FPB, as part of its submission to the government's Comprehensive Spending Review, has highlighted the need for the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, to prioritise reducing tax and slashing red tape for smaller companies.

Small and medium sized businesses owners take risks and in the current climate of increasing tax and regulation the growing evidence shows that running your own business has become less and less attractive, causing many business owners to cut back on investment and expansion with more and more considering selling and getting out all together

Of the FPB's members surveyed 70 per cent said that a reduction in NICs would encourage them to believe that the government was committed to encouraging entrepreneurs and employment. Two-thirds said they would consider taking on more staff as a result. Almost 70 per cent of the respondents believed that cutting the lower rate of corporation tax would result in greater profits, which could then be ploughed back into their businesses, in particular into staff training and development.

If the Government is serious about encouraging enterprise it has the opportunity in the next budget to demonstrate it. One thing that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling cannot say is that nobody told them what they needed to do.

Chris Slocock
Immediate Past President
Dorset Business

• Print
• Email
• Share