It’s long been the case, in life as well as business that the bigger and richer you are, the more you get away with. Anyone running a small business with big companies as clients knows what a nightmare it can be to get paid; but if you owe them money, it’s not long before the legal stuff starts. The taxman has a similar nightmare getting tax from many of those big companies and has targets to meet, like everyone working for the government these days. So who can blame him if he goes for the soft, low-hanging fruit and sends increasing numbers of small businesses to the wall? If you want to blame someone, look higher up the food chain. I’d say.
“Rachel Reeves may be forced to raise taxes”
Why did she/they (in the old sense) think that tinkering around with IHT and CGT would be enough to sort out the NHS; and the potholes; and…and the list goes on. My guess is that they asked the Treasury for a list of anything not involving income tax that they could get away with lightly, although they should already have learned from the winter fuel stuff that all publicity is not good publicity.
