Tax breaks should be introduced, UK entrepreneurs say

The government should introduce tax breaks immediately and abolish the 50p tax rate to stimulate growth and support small businesses, said the UK’s top entrepreneurs in a survey by Ernst & Young.

The business entrepreneurs involved in the survey - including Balhousie Care chairman Tony Banks, AppSense executive chairman Charles Sharland, powerPerfector chief executive Angus Robertson and Markco Media chairman Mark Pearson - have mostly set up their own businesses and gone on to employ thousands of staff across the UK.

The survey was filled in by business leaders that feature in the Business XL/GrowthBusiness Top 50 Rising Stars of 2011, a yearly list of upcoming companies with the fastest-growing sales and profits that year.

They agreed that the 50p tax rate acts as a major hurdle to enterprise and incentive. Some said they had lost senior managers who moved abroad due to the current rates, leading to difficulties with business expansion.

Tax breaks were, overall, considered to be the most important change to be made, while the entrepreneurs who represented regions and industries around the UK said that assistance with funding should be more readily available, along with more support and advice. They also said that bureaucracy should be reduced.

Potential barriers to growth included a lack of funding, not enough skilled staff, the economic downturn, tax, low confidence and rising competition from other countries.

Richard Hall of Ernst & Young said, “Most of these businessmen and women have started from nothing and taken huge risks to drive innovation, employment and growth. They are responsible for more than half of all growth, yet despite this there is a strong view that entrepreneurs still face lack of support.”

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