Business Rates & Council Tax Issues In Shepway

When the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust (RDHCT) and the Creative Foundation (CF) have problems paying their Council Tax, then you know something is wrong (it was eventually paid). This happened to the CF & the RDHCT in 2014/15. This information has been provided by Shepway District Council (SDC) in an FOI response, where they state:

“For all accounts a liability order was obtained and passed to the bailiff as there was an outstanding balance owed to Shepway District Council on which no reasonable offer of payment was made.”

When Landcap Development Eversley Ltd; who gave a £3000 pound donation to the Folkestone & Hythe Conservative Association in July 2015, has a problem paying its Council Tax, then questions need to be asked.

Between 2012/13 and 2016/17 – One Hundred & Sixteen companies had liability orders raised against them and passed to bailiffs to collect. The names of businesses are included in a spreadsheet (at the end of this blog) – sole traders, individuals and partnership names have not been included in the list because of Data Protection reasons.

Between 2012/13 – 2016/17 Four Hundred & Six companies had problems paying their Business Rates.

Among the companies who had the bailiffs sent in to collect business rates was the Elshamma Corporation Ltd who owned the former Salisbury Hotel (pictured). Now the irony here was that the Elshamma Corporation had problems paying for three years in a row. They were 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16. However during this time SDC were using the Salisbury Hotel to place homeless families in and thus paying them for B&B accommodation. In fact, they paid them the princely sum of £433,755, so how could they have issues with not paying their business rates? And why was SDC using a hotel to house homeless people when they were not paying their business rates persistently?

Among the other companies who did not pay their business rates in 2015/16; thus forcing SDC to raise a liability order and pass it on to bailiffs to collect, was Ccpiii Shopping Folkestone Sarl who own Bouverie Place Shopping Centre and are registered offshore in Luxembourg and who are not short of a few bob or two. Also the Saga Group Ltd had issues paying their business rates. The Saga Group Ltd made a profit of £116,295,000 in 2014, according to its accounts lodged at Companies House and at that time was owned by Acromas who were based in the offshore tax jurisdiction of Gibraltar.

The fact that these global and national brands have had issues with paying their Council Tax or Business Rates, shows it is not just the former Conservative Mayor Emily Arnold, or ex Cllr David Wimble or Conservative Cllr for Folkestone East Claire Jeffrey who have cash flow issues, it can and does happen to any person or any company.

When over 500 companies & individuals have issues paying their Council Tax and Business Rates in Shepway, scale this up to the rest of the county and then the country as a whole, and that equals approximately 6000 companies in Kent. It demonstrates that the Conservatives who head up the Government, KCC and SDC do not have a clue about how to help businesses when they are having cash flow issues.

If elected on May 4th I will, if the need and desire is there, set up a local business forum and provide help and assistance to companies to grow and sustain themselves and address issues with Council Tax & Business rates, when and if companies have them.

Vote Bryan Rylands              Vote Independent                       May 4th

foi_bailiffs spreadsheet

Published & Promoted by Bryan Rylands Flat D Avenay Court Folkestone CT20 2LN

All the information above is my own and does not represent the views of the Shepwayvox Team who have kindly allowed me to use their blogsite.