Mrs Shah, who runs my local corner shop, is furious, says Dominic Lawson. Who can blame her? She and her husband have had their small store in Pimlico, Westminster, for the past 27 years. But the Government may be about to put it out of business. On 1 April, there is to be a “revaluation” of business rates around the country, the first for seven years. And as the rates are based on property values, the tax hike for businesses in central London will be “dramatic”: the Shahs’ bills will rise by £20,000 over the next three years. Supermarkets and big chain stores will be able to absorb the extra cost, but for those like the Shahs, who already work long hours, seven days a week, on slender profit margins, the change will be crippling. These family shops are hubs of their local community – places where the owners know your name, offer you credit if you forget your wallet, hold a set of your house
keys to give to a plumber if you’re out. They’ll disappear and be replaced by yet more charity shops, which are exempt from business rates, or by Tesco stores. And we’ll all be worse off for it.
