Making absolutely sure that anyone selling on Amazon was fully complaint with VAT law. Which is driving some to many legally responsible and even perfect businesses to the wall:
Amazon has been told by a government minister to unfreeze funds it is withholding from hundreds of merchants as part of new VAT checks that have left businesses fearing potential bankruptcy.
Kevin Hollinrake, the enterprise minister, said he was “very concerned” after as many as 400 small traders appealed to Liz Barclay, the small business commissioner, for help after their cash was withheld by Amazon for months.
Mr Hollinrake said: “We are writing to Amazon to tell them to unfreeze the accounts until they have a proper process that is in place.
“We understand why they are doing it – we need to ensure VAT is collected – but doing it on a knee-jerk basis, especially at a time when there is self-assessment due, is pretty ill-timed.”
There’s a cost to perfection in tax gathering. You know, jobs, businesses, etc. Not that Spud will ever admit it but he really did campaign for this. His responsibility therefore.
Even more hilarious, most of the comments berate Amazon with only a few noticing that the government intervening, telling them to get a move on, is responsible for this in the first place! And so is merely grandstanding. But then that’s all the Craptive Party is good for. And it’s pretty crap at that…
I wonder how many times the government were told this would happen, but went ahead anyway because they wanted to make political announcements?
The hilarity will only be truly reached when Amazon is pilloried for allowing the little businesses to escape their tax responsibilities.
Yeah Barks.
I was wondering when that was going to happen.