Rates error behind Goole terminal closure
Government error has forced a Port of Goole terminal into liquidation.
A recent casualty of the UK Government’s retrospective rates bills levied on port businesses, port and stevedoring agency Scotline Terminal Goole (STG), was caused by government incompetence, as it has emerged that the £701,000 bill that forced them into liquidation was a mistake.
Scotline co-founder and director Peter Millatt told MJ that he fears ‘this is only the beginning’ for other small companies who are also in the Valuation Office Agency firing line. The VOA is an executive agency of the Inland Revenue responsible for business rates.
‘The government is steamrollering small businesses, he said. ‘We were told to just pay up and wait for a refund if due, but what the Valuation Office doesn’t appear to understand is that even given time to pay, a bill like this still forces a company into technical insolvency.’
The rates bills have been a controversial subject for many port operations who found out they were being stung for three year’s worth of backdated rates bills in 2007.
STG was forced into liquidation at the end of February with a loss of ten jobs, just a few weeks short of receiving notification that in fact they did not owe the total £701,000 in backdated rates. The correct bill was only £115,000.
“A good viable business has been destroyed and ten people made redundant by incompetence and the government’s arrogant attitude’, said Mr Millatt.
He went on to explain that the company put in appeal in January of this year but East Riding Council were forced by the government to try to collect and issued a (partial) bill of £200,000 on 8 February.
“The company had no way to pay, so we had to make the decision to make staff redundant and shut down, with ABP tearing up their agreement with STG on 3 March’, he said. He added that if the company had received a recalculated bill for the correct amount about a month earlier the company would not have been forced into liquidation.
Images for this article - click to enlarge
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright © Mercator Media 2012. This does not exclude the owner's assertion of copyright over the material.
