The Chancellor has announced that time-consuming paper tax returns will be replaced with digital accounts that keep an up-to-date online record and allow direct-debit installments.
The self-employed will also gain from the abolition of class 2 national insurance contributions.
Moreover, a review of the 400-year old business rates system heralds a shift in assessment from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index, with the smallest of businesses removed all together. The majority of commercial properties on which these rates are paid locally are occupied by small businesses.
This reform will help high street shops like those of Brick Lane, Roman Road, Whitechapel High Street and Columbia Road that are struggling to fend of online competition, and bring down prices for local consumers across Bethnal Green and Bow.
The stallholders on Whitechapel High Street, Roman Road and the markets of Brick Lane and Columbia road will gain from simplified and user–friendly self assessments. They will no longer have to submit duplicate information about their income or collect receipts, and will be able to pay tax when it suits them.
Tower Hamets must work with local entrepreneurs to ensure they have the skills to access online services, releasing them to use the hours they save expanding their businesses instead.
It is salutary to remember that 52% of local small businesses have been set up in the last three years.
Local entrepreneurs should be working for themselves not the taxman.