Why i'm planning to stop paying any taxes | thearticle

Eat out to help out, the government told us. And thanks to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s largesse, millions of people have been doing just that. The government has picked up the tab for enormous

discounts on restaurant and pub meals to encourage people to eat outside their homes and, hopefully, keep the hospitality industry alive at one of the most challenging moments for the

British economy in peace time. Near my home, the local authorities have gone further. Major roads through my village in central London have been halved, turned into gridlocked one-way crawls

so that restaurants, cafes and pubs can vastly expand their floor space with tables and chairs outside, on the footpath and the road, to accommodate all those diners so desperate to help

the hospitality industry from going out of business. Many of these businesses traded through lockdown with takeaway services — some, like the local Turkish kebab maker, thrived, serving food

from mid-morning until late into the night. Others stayed afloat with a loyal local clientele, who know the value of entrepreneurship and don’t want to see well-established places, which

give the area its unique and welcoming flavour, go under through no fault of their own. I bought fresh juices, which I would never do normally, from a local cafe where the staff said they

were doing “okay”. I shopped at the local pharmacy where I saw customers abusing the staff about high prices for hand sanitiser. “We’re being charged more by our suppliers,” the pharmacist

told me. “If we don’t pass that on, we won’t survive.” I patronised a nice Italian deli not far from home that opened for just a few hours each week day; I lined up at the local farmers’

market on Saturday mornings; I walked my local hairdresser’s dog so he could get on with renovating his salon while he had the chance. I have supported my local businesses so that the

landscape of my village survives. As a taxpayer, I have also contributed to subsidies that have funded “bounce back” loans and staff furlough for businesses in my area and across the

country. I wasn’t consulted, as a resident, property owner and tax payer in Westminster, on the decision to close roads for the businesses selling food and drink. None of the other

businesses in my area have been permitted to occupy the roads to carry on their trade — the hairdressers, the news agents, the charity and gift shops, the cobblers and tailors. And as a

freelance journalist — an independent business person who has assiduously paid taxes throughout my adult life — I have been excluded from any government support to keep me afloat during the

pandemic. What I’d initially thought, when the road closures were introduced after lockdown, was a scheme to ensure that pedestrians could maintain adequate distance from each other, has

become part of the problem, as the country faces a spike in Covid-19 infections and the concomitant fear of further lockdowns over the winter. Footpaths outside restaurants and cafes in my

neighbourhood are now regularly thronged with people, spilling outside, waiting for tables to become vacant on the road, making it impossible to pass while maintaining the

government-mandated two-metre social distance rule. I often feel forced to turn around and take another route. Many of these restaurants are now cordoning off the road area that has been

granted to them as if they own it, with chains and hoardings. Tables and chairs go out early in the morning. Staff are constantly crossing in and out. The hazard to public health is obvious.

When I wrote to my local MP, Nickie Aiken, to tell her that closing the roads for businesses to expand didn’t seem like such a good idea, she emailed back to say the hospitality sector was 

“on its knees” and needed all the help it could get. When I told her that nothing was coming to me by way of financial support, she was silent. This is a politician who has stood outside my

front door on election day and shouted at me to go and vote. Now, two or three times a week, I email her and Rishi Sunak a link to a story that was published in the _Sunday Times_ on

September 27 on the plight of independent, middle-class business people who are facing destitution after a life of hard work, their businesses excluded from government support schemes. I

don’t qualify for anything, I’m constantly told. My mortgage “holiday” has ended and repayments have increased to make up for the six months’ grace my bank gave me. As a freelance

journalist, there is little work and paltry income. My head is barely above water, and yet there is no lifeline. I’ve told Rishi & Nickie that my next step will be withholding all tax

payments — Westminster Council, HMRC, the TV licence. The only way they can get me is VAT, as a girl’s got to eat. But if no one is going to help me to eat out, I’ll be staying at home. And

Nickie can shout all she likes for her vote next time around. She won’t be getting mine.