15/10/07 - Brown's Inspectors To Tax Pub Quiz Nights

Exposed: Brown’s inspectors to tax
Britain’s pub quiz nights

Official tax manual reveals plans to hit “friendly” pubs with higher business rates

Conservatives sounded the alarm today at covert plans by Gordon Brown to tax pub quiz nights across the country. New Parliamentary Questions have forced the Valuation Office Agency – an arm of Inland Revenue – to publish its secretive tax handbook for the start of the business rates revaluation next year. Government tax snoops will start conducting inspections of every business from 2008. Special guidance is included in the inspection manual on how to value and tax pubs.

• Stealth tax on quiz nights, darts and football teams: To calculate the tax bill of every pub, the tax snoopers are instructed inside pubs to “record details of any pool or darts facilities”, to log “beer gardens, children’s play areas, bowling greens”, and record on official forms whether the pub has “any TV (including satellite) facility, quiz nights, pool, darts or football teams playing in leagues.” The requirement in the valuation handbook to collect information clearly means such attributes will be used in the calculation of the value of the property, penalising pubs with those features.

• Higher taxes on “friendly” pubs: As part of this valuation process, the tax inspectors are then asked to record “does the pub appear friendly and popular”. The taxmen, who will be valuing every pub across the land, are instructed to obtain price lists of beers, wines and spirits, and log the type of pub - for example, a "village pub" or "student venue".

• Clipboard-wielding snoops taking maths lessons: The inspectors are told to carry their identity card, a measuring tape or laser measuring device, a digital camera to take photographs and a clipboard. The entire area of the pub must be calculated, including detailed information on the customer toilets. The tax spies are given maths lessons in the tax handbook to help them calculate the area, including mathematical formula for calculating "rhomboids", "trapeziums", "cones", "prisms" and "undecagons" (eleven-sided shapes). Gordon Brown has been directly in charge of these inspectors over his ten years as Chancellor. The inspectors have legal rights of entry into every business premises, just like they have into people’s homes, to help them hike taxes.

• Soaring taxes for the great British pub: Unlike council tax, business rates are based on the ‘rateable value’ of the property. For every pound that this rateable value is increased, the final business rates bill will be increased by 44% (the ‘multiplier’). Hence, if a pub’s value was increased by £1,000 due to having a quiz nights and a vibrant football team, then the business rates bill would rise by £440 a year, over and above what the bill was already. Business rates are already the third biggest outgoing for firms after rent and staff. Bland ‘vertical drinking’ establishments – the ‘clone pubs’ that dominate Britain’s high streets will hardly notice – but small, local pubs will be the hardest hit. Gordon Brown's 'local', the Red Lion opposite Downing Street and a favourite haunt of Labour spin doctors, will not be affected by virtue of not having darts, pool or quiz nights.

• ‘Big Brother’ property database: The Government has spent £13 million on building a new ‘Big Brother’ computer database for the council tax revaluation in England, using secretive American contractors. Parliamentary Questions have also revealed that the tax snoopers are planning a similar database for this controversial rates revaluation. This will allow for all these detailed property attributes – like pubs’ social facilities – to be logged and recorded. Complex mathematical formulas will then churn out how much extra tax should be paid as a result. 

Cllr Justin Tomlinson, North Swindon Parliamentary Candidate,

“We already knew that Gordon Brown’s tax snoops are preparing for a council tax revaluation, and want to enter people’s homes to tax conservatories, bedrooms and nice neighbourhoods. It is now clear that these tax snoops are now readying their clipboards, cameras and tape measures for a rates revaluation, using the same Big Brother computer technology that is planned to tax people’s homes."

Robert Buckland, South Swindon Parliamentary Candidate,

“In his usual sneaky way, Gordon Brown is planning a raid into the heart of middle England – to tax the traditional pub quiz. Labour and their Whitehall bureaucrats fail to understand that if pubs are charged extra taxes for supporting quiz nights, darts or a local football team, then many pub bosses will just scrap these social facilities to save cash. Conservatives will fight these stealth tax plans and stand up for the great British pub.”