Life Is Taxing

The Times reports that small businesses spent longer doing their taxes in 2008 than in 2007, despite Labour's promise to reduce red tape.

Small and medium-sized businesses in Britain spent on average an extra five hours working on their taxes, mainly because of the temporary cut in VAT in December last year. The total number of hours spent filling in tax returns rose to a record average of 110, up from 105 in September, according to a report by the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Britain slipped from 24th to 25th in the rankings of 183 countries for the least number of hours spent on taxes.

Will the government ease the administrative and tax burden?

No!

The increase in the PSBR means that the government will in fact increase taxes. Unfortunately, given that we are in the middle of a recession, this increase will only make matters worse.

Posted in: government,HMRC,public sector,recession,tax