Businesses will suffer because of the budget… but did Labor have a choice? | UK News

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Business will raise prices

As the owner of a small family farm shop and cafe in West Sussex, our payroll accounts for around 40 per cent of turnover.

Any profit goes back into the business. Raising the minimum wage for young workers is actually 16 percent.

We love our staff and have no intention of cutting staff, but we have no choice but to increase prices by six per cent in April (20 per cent of this increase will go to the tax authorities in the form of VAT).

Increases in national insurance add to the pressure. While I agree to pay our brilliant team more, raising the minimum wage will drive up prices, inflation and increase costs for everyone. Christian, West Sussex

Money has to come from somewhere

Jimmy (MetroTalk, Friday) says the state is “bloated” and that poor government services are evidence the government is spending money poorly.

If he were caught in a snowstorm wearing only shorts and caught a cold, would Jimmy take this as evidence that his clothes weren’t keeping him warm enough? After 14 years of pointless austerity, it is clear that our poor public services are the result of the government not spending enough to maintain them.

The government is actually a better spender because it is accountable to the people rather than to selfish shareholders. It is also more financially efficient since there is no need to collect profits. Jimmy also says the state will “feast on entrepreneurship.” He forgets that entrepreneurship depends entirely on good healthcare and education to stimulate creativity and provide skilled and healthy employees.

The money has to come from somewhere, and after decades of borrowing, we need to raise taxes.

Taxes are only inherently bad if you care more about your wealth than your children.

We need to overcome this collective irrational fear of taxes so that we can have intelligent conversations about how we should tax people and where the money should be spent. Sharon, Manchester

Other countries are making higher taxes work

Otto Inglis (MetroTalk, Friday) believes higher taxes will be bad for the economy and will force entrepreneurs to leave. In his words, “This disastrous budget is the result of people who lack real business experience putting their prejudices above the fundamentals of economics.”

Let’s look at the “real world”. Nordic countries have high tax rates. Are they failing? No.

They are among the most developed countries on the planet with ultra-high GDP per capita and happiest citizens in the world.

The US raised taxes after Covid. Is this unfortunate? No. Its economy has recovered better than any other country in the G7. None of these cases resulted in a mass exodus of entrepreneurs, since most rich people don’t mind paying a little more to take care of the country in which they live.

What about “basic economics”? So, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century was one of the most well-researched economic treatises of the modern era.

Piketty concluded that the best way forward is to raise taxes on wealth and capital gains, which is one of Labour’s key budget targets.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was Mr. Inglis who lacked real experience and basic economics.

However, if he doesn’t like the new taxes, he can always move to a tax haven. Maybe Ireland, where basic services are falling apart, or the Netherlands, where the government has taken over the radical right. Charlie Parrett, Stock

Services are collapsing – let Labor try to fix it

It’s very disheartening to read rants about Labor being anti-business and anti-everyone who is rich.

Labor had the courage to try to solve the deficit in an unpleasant but necessary way – by raising taxes. The National Health Service is falling apart. Likewise our school and university systems. Social and mental health services need massive financial support. Do you want these systems to work? You have to pay for them.

Congratulations to Rachel Reeves and the Labor Party for their courage. Keith, London

Money earmarked for the NHS will undoubtedly go into the bottomless pit of NHS funding and will have little effect on waiting times or the number of people receiving treatment or booking appointments.

A far better announcement would be to immediately find or create a task force tasked with carrying out radical reform of the entire NHS. Verna, London

Or can’t they?

So Rachel Reeves cares about pensions and retirees? Only if you work in the public sector.

This economic black hole, which is growing ever larger and solely dependent on the Tories, should bring the constituency to its knees – it is so big. What Reeves doesn’t want to publicize is that most of the supposed black hole belongs to her. She needs to raise taxes to cover the cost of higher wages and replenish public sector pension funds.

The Labor Party has no idea how to run a country. Gary, Essex

Do you know what else an attack on aspiration is?

The next time a politician tries to claim that Labour’s introduction of VAT on private school fees is an “attack on aspiration”, he should be reminded that it was privately educated George Osborne and Nick Clegg who punished ambitious young people when they Tuition fees at an English university the highest in the world, saddled with an entire generation of almost irrevocable debt.

It is also worth remembering that it was the party most closely associated with private education – the Tory Party – that introduced VAT to shift the tax burden onto the less well off and then tripled it. Philip Duval, Stretford

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