How online tax can save high streets as Rishi Sunak vetoes Amazon move – The Yorkshire Post says

It is a societal trend that will also not be easy to reverse now that “home working” has become entrenched as the “new normal” for a significant proportion of the workforce. It’s also scant consolation to those retail and hospitality ventures that targeted office workers.

Rishi Sunak on sleepless nights, Bettys and following William Hague

Yet, just as so many of Yorkshire’s market towns and businesses have adapted in the pandemic’s wake, it is the same for cities like Leeds and Sheffield – the onus is on them to alter their appeal so that people have a reason to visit them for employment, retail or leisure purposes.

But this will require a far more flexible planning system and funding from the London government to help with rejuvenation work – all the more reason why a tax levy on the warehouses used by internet giants like Amazon would make political and economic sense so they no longer undercut struggling high streets.

And it is perplexing that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has chosen this issue to demonstrate his low-tax credentials ahead of a possible Tory leadership contest – he should know, from talking to traders in towns like Northallerton in his Richmond constituency, that online giants do have an unfair advantage when it comes to business rates and that he should be doing everything within the Treasury’s power to help high streets survive and, hopefully, thrive after an economic and public health emergency like no other.

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