Healey funds high street tax cuts with raid on gambling firms and online sellers

The government will fund tax breaks for small high street shops by hiking taxes on gambling and cracking down on online sellers, John Healey said. In his first Budget, the Chancellor said he will slash taxes on the high street by raising the threshold at which small firms start paying business rates from £12,000 to £18,000. The government will fund this by raising machine games duty, a tax levied on gambling firms, from 20 to 25 per cent. Betting firms have feared a hike to 40 per cent, making this tax raid far softer than rumoured. The Chancellor said a crackdown on online retail will also fund these tax breaks for physical retailers. E-commerce platforms like Amazon and Ebay will be made responsible for collecting VAT directly from the sellers that use their platforms. The hike to the business rates relief threshold will benefit 70,000 high street businesses, meaning half of the UK s shops, restaurants and gyms will no longer pay the tax, Healey said. For our high st