JUST FOUR PER CENT of founders are confident that Chancellor John Healey’s first Budget will be good for business.
The research also finds that not a single respondent is ‘very confident’, according to new data published by Helm, the UK’s largest community of scale-up founders.
The findings come just weeks before Healey is set to deliver his Budget to Parliament on 28 October, amid mounting speculation over new taxes on capital and wealth.
Four hundred of Helm’s members were polled on how confident they are that the Budget will be good for business, with 73 per cent saying they are ‘not at all confident’ and 23 per cent ‘not very confident’, while just four per cent say they are ‘fairly confident’.
Almost nine in ten (88 per cent) say a tax on capital or assets is the change they most fear, with more than half (57 per cent) naming capital gains tax being increased again or brought into line with income tax, and almost a third (31 per cent) citing a wealth tax on personal assets or property.
Asked what the Chancellor could do to stimulate growth, more than a third (35 per cent) say he should reverse the increases in employers’ National Insurance contributions and more than a quarter (27 per cent) want him to commit to no further tax increases on business for the rest of this Parliament, while just one in ten (11 per cent) choose cutting the cost of employment regulation.
Speaking at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool last month, Healey said he wanted the Government’s decisions and policies to bring “new levels of confidence, investment and yes, profits in British business”.
Helm, whose members run scale-up businesses with a combined revenue of more than £8 billion, leads the Stop the Creep campaign, backed by more than 150 business leaders and parliamentarians including Phones 4u founder John Caudwell and former Marks & Spencer boss Lord Rose.
Andreas Adamides, CEO of Helm, said:
“When just four per cent of the founders we surveyed are confident about the upcoming Budget, a Chancellor who has staked so much on growth should be doing everything he can to back British businesses.
“Barely a week goes by without new rumours about capital gains tax increases or wealth taxes, but founders need certainty to plan ahead, which means no more additions to the cost of employing people and no more moving of the goalposts on tax.
“Give them these assurances and Britain’s scale-up founders will be able to deliver the growth we desperately need, but keep the tax creep going and Britain will keep training entrepreneurs for export.”
Gareth Broekmann, founder and managing director of Charles Square, said:
“We’re a 60-person business and we’ve grown through every kind of economic weather, but what has slowed us down recently is not any one tax, it is not knowing what is coming next. I can make a hiring decision on a bad rule. I cannot make one when the rule might change at the next Budget. If the Chancellor wants growth, the most valuable thing he can give small businesses is a few years of leaving things alone.”
Fiona Hudson-Kelly, executive chair of BPIF Training, said:
“Take the difficult decisions and stop taxing the easy targets like small businesses that are trying to grow.”
Find out more at: www.helmclub.co
