Bottler brown the unelected coward and badger haired Chancellor Alistair Darling (aka Squealer) are planning more tax rises for the put upon pub trade.
Naturally this will lead to a decline in the number of pubs as Landlords & Landladies throw in the bar towel and leave the trade.
Those who remain will be forced to up prices on the equally hard put upon drinker, thus increasing the number of people deserting the pub to drink at home. The only pubs able to handle such increases in stealth tax will be the big corporate chains like JD Wetherspoon, whilst the friendly local will become an ever rare and more expensive sight in Gordon Browns, brave new Cool Britannia.
From the Daily Mail...
Gordon Brown became embroiled in a new tax row last night as secret plans to introduce a levy on pub quizzes were revealed.
Confidential orders to council tax snoopers, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, say 'friendly' pubs with quiz nights, football teams or dartboards will be forced to pay higher business rates, which will pay for Labour's public-spending programme.
The plan, which could lead to big tax rises for bars deemed 'popular', was last night condemned by the Tories, who claimed it could lead to landlords cancelling quizzes and other social events.
**You name it and bottler Brown will tax it. Naturally I will claim that it will not have any real harm, that we all need to drink less for health reasons and that it was all down to someone, anyone else. Squealer aka Alistair Darling will be the piglet doing the annoucing but the puppet master will be the dour coward bottler Brown.
'Labour fails to understand that if pubs are charged extra taxes for supporting social facilities, landlords may just scrap them.'
The pub-quiz tax is disclosed in guidance notes drawn up by the Government-run Valuation Office Agency, which is carrying out a review of every business in the land using a 60-page instruction booklet entitled the Non-Domestic Rating Referencing Manual.
The agency is carrying out a similar survey of all UK homes using a £13million computer database run by secretive American contractors.
Guidance on how to set the rates for a pub tells inspectors to take into account a number of factors: 'Note any TV (including satellite) facility, quiz nights, pool, darts or football teams in leagues. Does the pub appear friendly and popular?'
In addition, pool and darts 'facilities' must be logged along with 'beer gardens, children's play areas and bowling greens'.
The inspectors must obtain price lists of beers, wines and spirits and assess the type of pub, such as 'standard local, village pub [or] student venue', suggesting pleasant locals will have to pay more than scruffier student bars.
The manual explains how inspectors should visit pubs armed with an identity card, tape-measure or laser measuring device, digital camera and clipboard. They are even given maths lessons on how to ensure every square inch of the pub is taxed, including the mathematical formula for calculating the area of 'rhomboids, trapeziums, and undecagons [11-sided shapes]'.
**You could not make it up, the pen pushers will now have the latest in computerised wizardry to enable the uber-state to drain them of every drop of taxable revenue.
The manual used for the last business-rates review in 2005 made no mention of 'friendly' pubs or quiz nights and specifically stated that takings not related to selling alcohol, such as 'video machines, telephones, jukeboxes and pool tables', should not be used as an excuse to hike business rates. There is no such exemption in the new manual.
Significantly, the document was slipped out by Chancellor Alistair Darling in a parliamentary written answer on July 25. That was the day before the Commons rose for the summer recess, by which time many MPs had already started their holidays. It is a classic New Labour tactic to 'bury bad news' because it is less likely to be scrutinised if MPs are not around.
**Yes, New Labour have a long and glorious record of burying bad news.
Unlike the old guidance which was available for inspection on the internet, the new guidance appears only on the agency's internal intranet, which cannot be accessed by the public. Now, Mr Darling has been forced to place a copy in the Commons library, where it can be studied by MPs.
Business rates are set at 44 per cent of the rateable value of the property, so if a pub's rateable value is increased by £1,000 either because it attracts extra custom with regular quiz nights or because it has a 'friendly' atmosphere, the bill would increase by £440 a year.
The figure could be much higher in large pubs, which pay up to £50,000 a year in rates. Conversely, a remote village pub paying just £1,000 a year in rates could see its tax bill double under the new rules.
**And guess who will pick up the costs for that? Yep the punter, the costs of drinks/food and other facilities in public houses will have to go up to cover the running costs increased by New Labour.
Tory spokesman Mr Pickles said: 'These tax snoops are readying their clipboards for a rates revaluation, using the same Big Brother technology that is planned to log and tax people's homes.'
Dave Hogarth, of the National Quiz network of pub quizzes, said: 'Publicans are already struggling with adverse weather and the smoking ban, and quizzes are designed to replace lost revenue on quiet evenings. They shouldn't be punished for it.'
Caroline Nodder, editor of The Publican magazine, said pubs would take the news 'extremely badly', adding: 'Pubs are already hit from all sides by red tape and rising costs and are finding it a struggle to survive.'
The new business-rates valuations are due to be finalised by 2009 and will take effect in 2010.
**Welcome to Cool Britannia, where the local pub will soon be an endangered species. New Labour the only government that looks at George Orwell's book 1984 and sees it as a guide book on running the nation.
Tags: Gordon Brown, Chicken, Cool Britannia
4 people have spoken:
I'm betting that this is forerunner to a dry country padering to the islamist yet again.
You know if they want to stop people from drinking too much, then start charging them for health care, not screwing over the ones that drink moderately as well. But then that's leftists for you, punish all whoever they may be. Hence the ones that don't look after their own health are never penalized, everyone else is.
Pubs (as a going concern) are valued by their profits alone, whether by the government or the open market.
Bizzare tabloid tosh.
Sadly anon they have plans to phase these taxes in, so tosh it is not.
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