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JUST as many Warminster businesses are reeling from the recession and the long-running disruption caused by the  town centre improvements,  visionforwarminster has discovered the Government is planning to increase the tax burden, writes Paul Macdonald.

 

Going through the Houses of Parliament at the moment isa  new proposal called the business rates supplements bill which will allow county councils and the new unitary authority to add a two pence in the pound supplement to business rates.

 

Any business with a rateable value of £50,000 or more could be hit by this new tariff that is intended to pay for 'economic development'.

 

The government may allow a ballot of businesses that are affected as sugar on the bitter pill and it is only intended to make this extra revenue available in England and Wales.

 

The government claims that the main benefits of the bill are to promote long term economic growth and productivity of those areas that levy this extra charge.

 

They hope that it will put investment into projects that might not otherwise get under way.

 

"This could result in the top end of local government wasting more huge sums on consultants, pie-in-the-sky plans and strategies that will make no difference to economic development but simply squeeze hard-pressed businesses even more," said Steve Dancey.

 

"We already have the truly useless waste of time that is known as the South West Regional Development Agency taking on that role in this area."

 

The bill is at committee stage at the moment.