Croxley’s resident café owner cum political campaigner recently appeared on Politics Live on BBC Two to talk about the problems facing small businesses.
Linda Anderson, the owner of The Kitchen on Watford Road, told politicians on the show on Wednesday, June 19, that the biggest issue facing small businesses is aggressively high VAT.
She said: “In hospitality, you have to add 20 per cent VAT on every bill. That means customers are paying 20 per cent more for a cup of coffee. That’s a lot for a local business to bear.
“The idea is that local businesses can claim back some of that VAT on what they buy, which is also taxed. However, there’s no tax on raw ingredients. So if I buy a cup of flour, I claim nothing, but when I use that flour to bake a cake, a fifth of the sale goes to the government.”
Over the last 18 months, staff at The Kitchen have worked hard to increase turnover by providing new catering services and afternoon teas, as well as opening as early as 7am. Despite this, The Kitchen is barely breaking even because costs are so high.
“Utilities bill have gone up from £5,000 per year a few years ago to £20,000 now, plus there’s inflation,” Linda told the panel of Labour and Conservative politicians live in the BBC studio.
Both Conservative Education Minister Damian Hinds and Labour Shadow Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds were complimentary of Linda’s resilience, but she told CROXLEYnews that she wasn’t much impressed with their responses.
“Compliments don’t pay the bills,” she said. “However, the response from the public has been really good.
“A man from Scotland called us saying that he wanted to help and ended up buying a load of brownies!”
Linda’s interview is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
Photo Credit: BBC 2
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