HUGE business rate hikes threat-ening 3,000 jobs at Mersey port companies were branded the “new 10p tax blunder” yesterday, as pressure grew on the Government to give way.
The Conservatives also claimed the shake-up would cost firms a staggering £33m – the first time anyone has put a price tag on the much-criticised changes. And, in the Commons, the Labour MP whose constituency includes Holyhead port, in North Wales, demanded an urgent Commons debate on the controversy.
Some firms have been landed with a shock bill for hundreds of thousands of pounds because of radical changes to the way the business tax is collected at 55 ports.
Most damagingly, the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which calculates property values, has insisted it must backdate bills to April 1, 2005.
Mersey Maritime, which rep-resents more than 1,000 busines-ses, warned that Liverpool would be among the hardest hit, with up to 3,000 jobs at risk.
Yesterday, the Tories produced an analysis based on the VOA’s admission that it will trigger a £19m annual net increase.
Because the “business rate multiplier” – the proportion of rateable value paid in tax – is typically 40-45%, that means an extra “ports tax” of more than £8m a year, the party said.
And, with four years’ of bills to pay through to the end of the next financial year in April, the total hike in business rates will be £33m, it calculated.
Bob Neill, the Conservative local government spokesman, said: “This is another Gordon Brown tax blunder, just like his 10p tax con.”
The Daily Post revealed on Saturday that, to end backdating, a new Bill must be brought before Parliament – a cumbersome and time-consuming process. But Mersey Maritime Communities Secretary Hazel Blears had the power to change rateable values without fresh legislation.
