DAN HYDE: Rethink this terrible tax on our livelihoods, our high streets and our communities  

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It's all very well for banks, supermarkets and coffee chains to moan about the taxes they pay - but they have it easy. The real victims are your local greengrocer, baker and cornershop owner.

Devastation is being heaped on communities by so-called business rates, and they can be difficult to fathom.

But 'business rates' is just jargon for the council tax firms pay on their bricks and mortar to fund services, such as repairs to the road outside.

The real victims: Devastation is being heaped on communities by so-called business rates

Like council tax, the charges are based on property values and must be reassessed every so often. 

Major retailers won't be badly hit by this April's changes, as taxes will rise in some of the areas where they have outlets and fall in others.

By contrast, family firms can't spread the cost. If property values have soared in their area since 2010 - when rates were last calculated - they face unaffordable hikes.

Make no mistake, the Government is taxing what it can, rather than what it should, and will decimate communities in the process.

Unlike income or corporation taxes, this levy bears no relation to earnings or profits. Most small retailers just about break even.

Their turnover covers wages, new stock, the family car, utility bills and days out - and that's it.

But, if by sheer fluke, their shop is in a village where property prices have rocketed in the past seven years, their bills could go from £300 a year to £3,000 over the next five.

Where does the Government think families will get that kind of money? If they cannot dip into their own pockets, they'll just close.

That'll leave our High Streets full of bookmakers, charity shops (which don't pay business rates) and big chains that employ armies of accountants to dodge as much tax as possible.

John Whiting argues profits from Airbnb and eBay should be taxed

We urgently need a rethink of how these taxes are calculated, before thousands of livelihoods and country towns are ruined for ever.

Taxing task

Did you file your tax return on time? As the deadline passed last night, accountants said thousands were being penalised for forgetting to mention old savings accounts, work health insurance and so on.

Last year, 142,775 people were fined for 'careless errors' - a 66 per cent rise on the previous 12 months.

But this is a problem of the Government's own making. Since the Office of Tax Simplification was formed in 2010, the length of our tax code has roughly doubled. 

The quango's director, John Whiting, argues our tax system must take in new money-making schemes, such as homeowners letting properties on Airbnb or trading on eBay.

But his job has been made unnecessarily complicated by repeated Government tinkering with savings, such as the £1,000 tax-free allowance.

In his own words, it's been like trying to paint Brighton pier as it's extended to France.

He should tell Chancellor Philip Hammond it'd make all our lives easier if he just scrapped all tax on savings. And how about ditching that pointless lifetime cap on pension saving while he's at it?

Gadget grief

It's all change for the telly. Not what's being shown on screen, but the way we watch it.

The 3D revolution is dead, with LG, Sony and Samsung ceasing production of the specialist sets. Turns out nobody wanted to wear the silly coloured glasses every time they turned on the box. You really don't say!

Now Dixons has a deal where you pay a monthly fee for your TV instead of buying one.

If a set breaks, the firm will repair or replace it.

I'm not sure it'll catch on, but at least Dixons, the owner of PC World, is trying to listen to what shoppers actually want.

The same can't be said about some of its in-store policies.

I've written before about the PC World store that told me you can't try headphones before buying — or return them if they sound tinny when you get them home.

After writing to Sebastian James, the firm's chief executive, he sent this polite reply: 'I don't think we covered ourselves in glory in terms of the advice we gave you. 

We do allow customers to return unused products within a period of time, even if they are not faulty and I'm sorry you were told differently.'

Great. And he says that the staff in the store that I visited are to be retrained.

He did add, however, that the gadgets where the box seals are broken 'are, in many cases, worthless,' so Dixons 'needs to be stricter' than fashion retailers on returns. That is just a little bit too vague for my liking.

Aid the elderly

Surrey County Council's response to the care funding crisis embodies everything that is wrong with the way our elderly are looked after.

Money Mail has seen documents that show officials went into the empty home of a widowed nursing home resident in her 80s to find proof she could afford care fees.

The council got her permission to do this just a month before she was judged incapable of managing her affairs.

It found bank statements showing £39,518 in savings and now wants to take control of her estate - she has since died - to cover the £36,333 care fees it paid.

The cash-strapped councils can't afford care bills of up to £1,000 a week per person - but who can? The Government could help. 

How about allowing money to be taken out of pensions tax-free to pay for care? And perhaps give people a 50p top-up for every £1 put into a 'care Isa'?

Everyone in Britain must share the care funding burden now - and that still has to include the state.

d.hyde@dailymail.co.uk

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