Clearly no one is fighting the online corner hard enough when it comes to the issue of tax - but one ecommerce retailer, at least, has taken matters into their own hands.
In a letter sent to the Government and to the British Retail Consortium, the etailer Sofa.com has branded suggestions of an online tax levy as 'self-interested' and 'hypocritical' and said they could 'hit at the heart of the UK's world-leading online retail industry.'
The online furniture store said the expansion of out-of-town shopping centres and hypermarkets was the 'greatest negative' to the high street and has dealt the biggest blow to traditional retail - not the growth of online.
Many campaigners say the Government still does little to prevent the expansion of retail out-of town, which continues apace. They say high street retailers have had to cope with a maelstrom of out-of-town expansion, rising rents, business rates and the internet.
But former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy and Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King have both stepped forward over the past week to say greater tax levies should be placed on online retailers. Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium has called for an overhaul of the UK tax system (see below: Furore Breaks Out Over Online Sales Tax Demands) to provide a level-playing field for its membership - which is dominated by 'bricks and mortar' retailers.
Pat Reeves and Rohan Blacker, co-founders of Sofa.com, said in a letter to chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander that their business 'like all profitable online retailers pays significant corporation tax and VAT while it also pays national insurance for employees'.
It said that the 'greatest negative' for the UK high street was the growth of out-of-town retailing which had drawn shoppers away from town centres. 'It seems somewhat hypocritical that retailers like Sainsbury's and B&Q - significant proponents of out-of-town shopping centres - are now championing themselves as 'defenders of the high street'.
B&Q is owned by DIY conglomerate Kingfisher whose chief executive Ian Cheshire is also chairman of the BRC.
The letter says: 'Online businesses often fail. Online isn't some magical way of beating the high street, only the best businesses survive and as such, it's absurd to imply that online retail has an inherent advantage over traditional shops.'
Sofa.com was created when the founders bought the domain name in 2005 for $215,000. It was launched in September 2006 and great to £10 million sales in the year to February 2011. The following year, the latest for which figures are available, sales were £13 million.
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