Business
Business
The Conservative Party is a business friendly party. Policies such as abolishing corporation tax for new start up businesses and increasing the corporate tax allowance prove this. We believe businesses play a vital part in helping our economy grow and therefore it is our responsibility as a government to make our country as business friendly as possible, so to help stimulate economic growth. If we can work with businesses successfully then we believe we can achieve our goal of a low tax and a high wage economy.
Supporting Small Businesses
The Conservative Party is the party of small businesses. Small businesses with less than £100,000 of profit will be entirely exempt from corporation tax. Newly set-up small businesses will be entirely exempt from tax for their first two years unless they exceed £1,000,000 profit. In the businesses third year after being set-up they will pay 5% corporation tax. By the fourth year they will pay 10% corporation tax and in the fifth year the newly set-up business will move onto the standard small business rate which will be 15%. As a party who supports small businesses and wants to see more entrepreneurs in our country, we believe adopting this policy as it will inspire a new generation of small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Reforming Sunday Trading Laws
The Conservative Party believes the state should have no say over when a business can and cannot open. This is why we want to repeal Sunday trading laws and would push to implement this in a Conservative government.
Cutting European Regulations
Whilst the Conservative Party realised the EU can have benefits to small business, too often the strict regulation can seriously hurt small businesses as well. We recognise this fact and we will therefore negotiate with the EU to exempt our small businesses from this tight regulation so that they can prosper and thrive.
Cutting Corporation Tax
As we are the party of aspiration, we want to attract businesses to our country so they can invest in our country and create more jobs to improve our economy. This is why we would lower corporation tax to 20%.
Diverted Profits Tax
The Conservative Party understands that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. Hence in order to tackle aggressive tax avoidance we would introduce a “Diverted Profits” tax which would be levied on to businesses who try to avoid corporation tax by using entities or transactions which lack the economic substance to exploit tax mismatches.
Diversification
In order to diversify our economy, the Conservative Party would like to see more services but in particular goods being exported. This is why a Conservative government would offer a small tax break to firms if they managed to export a certain proportion of the goods or services they sell.
Trade Union Reforms
We will look to pass legislation combating corruption in the trade union movement. The current turnout threshold is currently abused, with unions using old ballots to support strikes which do not have the workers’ support. In addition,we will tackle the disproportionate impact of strikes in essential public services by introducing a tougher threshold in health, education, fire and transport. Industrial action in these essential services would require the support of at least 40 per cent of all those entitled to take part in strike ballots – as well as a majority of those who actually turn out to vote. We will repeal restrictions banning employers from hiring agency staff to provide essential cover during strikes; and ensure strikes cannot be called on the basis of ballots conducted years before. We will tackle intimidation of non-striking workers; legislate to ensure trade unions use a transparent opt-in process for party subscriptions; tighten the rules around taxpayer-funded paid ‘facility time’ for union representatives; and reform the role of the Certification Officer.
European Financial Transaction Tax
A previous manifesto promise of ours was to repeal the European Union Financial Transaction Tax. This is because it is a tax built to benefit German and French cities while hurting London. It is vital London remains the financial capital of the world. We managed to pass a motion through the House of Commons to repeal this tax. However the Government decided to reject democracy and reject the motion.
Secondary Action
As part of our stance to fairly regulate unions, we will propose legislation to reform the union system in order to restrict strikes on public services. We will also completely oppose the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill which passed through the House of Commons and we will push to make sure this bill is repealed. This bill would legalise secondary strike action and would require a very low turnout for strike action. This would hurt the small businesses and workers across the U.K, hence our fierce opposition to such a bill.
Financial Regulation
To avoid an economic catastrophe similar to the one that occurred in 2008, the Conservative Party would put regulation of banks back into the hands of the Bank of England. This is so we can assure that banks do not mismanage their finances and their assets. On top of this we will continue to sell the Government’s stakes in bailed out banks and building societies so we can get value for money for the taxpayer.
