“I said I wanted a bleeding gastropub, not a breeding gastropod!”
No-Mark4427 on
>Shell companies are acquiring the gastropods to claim their empty buildings are ‘agricultural facilities’ to get out of paying business rates.
>Judging by pictures of the office space, all this requires is getting a snail breeding business to set up a couple of boxes on the ground.
>But in order to achieve an exemption as a snail farm an application must be made to the Valuation Office, which is an agency of HMRC.
>In these cases – no such application is ever made, presumably on the basis that the Valuation Office would inevitably reject any application.
This makes no sense? It’s like me putting an apple tree in my garden and claiming its an orchard or putting a fishtank in my house and claiming its a fishery. Obviously nobody is going to buy it and no government agency is going to entertain the argument.
What’s the point in these companies claiming their buildings are agri facilities and even going through this facade if they don’t have the proper paperwork to back it up and are being raided anyway?
The snail farms aren’t ‘helping them avoid rates’, the people who own these buildings are simply illicitly not paying the rates they owe with no paperwork to say they are exempt.
Am I missing something?
tfhermobwoayway on
> Shell companies are acquiring the gastropods
Likely thing for them to do
MerakiBridge on
This thing has been going on for ages and the government had zero interest in addressing the problem.
Nabbylaa on
Tax evasion.
People and companies who have enough wealth and assets to own incredibly expensive buildings in London are using loopholes to take the piss out of us once again.
CNash85 on
Interesting that this story has popped up in the Metro now, just days after London Centric ran it with their own investigation…
8 commenti
We had the same up north, it’s a way to dodge business rates and the councils are wise to it now https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-68314670
“I said I wanted a bleeding gastropub, not a breeding gastropod!”
>Shell companies are acquiring the gastropods to claim their empty buildings are ‘agricultural facilities’ to get out of paying business rates.
>Judging by pictures of the office space, all this requires is getting a snail breeding business to set up a couple of boxes on the ground.
>But in order to achieve an exemption as a snail farm an application must be made to the Valuation Office, which is an agency of HMRC.
>In these cases – no such application is ever made, presumably on the basis that the Valuation Office would inevitably reject any application.
This makes no sense? It’s like me putting an apple tree in my garden and claiming its an orchard or putting a fishtank in my house and claiming its a fishery. Obviously nobody is going to buy it and no government agency is going to entertain the argument.
What’s the point in these companies claiming their buildings are agri facilities and even going through this facade if they don’t have the proper paperwork to back it up and are being raided anyway?
The snail farms aren’t ‘helping them avoid rates’, the people who own these buildings are simply illicitly not paying the rates they owe with no paperwork to say they are exempt.
Am I missing something?
> Shell companies are acquiring the gastropods
Likely thing for them to do
This thing has been going on for ages and the government had zero interest in addressing the problem.
Tax evasion.
People and companies who have enough wealth and assets to own incredibly expensive buildings in London are using loopholes to take the piss out of us once again.
Interesting that this story has popped up in the Metro now, just days after London Centric ran it with their own investigation…
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball-the-snail-farmer-his-mafia
Owner was asked to reply but responses were sluggish.