§ Mr. Geoffrey RobinsonTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received on 495W the tax compliance costs to unincorporated business in the last year; and if he will make a statement. [6913]
§ Mr. PageI am aware of the concerns expressed by unincorporated businesses and by small businesses generally regarding tax compliance costs. These concerns were raised, for example, in the course of the "Your Business Matters" conferences and the resulting report which was published earlier this year.
The Government have taken a number of steps to reduce the burdens imposed on small businesses. These include the joint working programme, which has made the PAYE and NIC systems easier to operate, and the VAT annual accounting scheme which reduces the number of returns to be made from one per quarter to one per year. Self-assessment, which is now being introduced, is a simpler, more streamlined system for unincorporated businesses and is expected in time to lead to reduced compliance costs.
Percentage of small and medium sized enterprises who export Enterprise size (no. of employees) United Kingdom 1990 Italy 1991 Holland 1993 Portugal 1992 Spain 1991 0–9 28 No data 7 5 18 10–19 39 39 25 25 18 20–49 39 57 38 25 35 50–99 39 75 44 25 49 100–249 No data 75 55 63 69 250–499 No data 77 55 73 84 500+ No data 64 55 86 89 Sources:
For the UK: The state of British Enterprise, University of Cambridge 1992.
For other EU countries: European Observatory for SMEs, 1994 annual report.