M&S boss says UK retailers being ‘raided like a piggy bank’ over planned tax rises Stuart Machin also speculates about whether successive governments have been guilty of ‘snobbery’ towards retail.
He said changes to the extended producer responsibility (EPR) fees, which are designed to fund recycling, would mean retailers would have to pay 20 times more, with £2bn of the fees going straight to the Treasury without improving recycling.
Retailers face a £7bn increase in costs this year, according to the British Retail Consortium, including the changes to employers’ NICs, packaging levies and the increase in the legal minimum wage.
Stuart Machin said that without pausing or staggering the changes to national insurance and business rates, which come into effect this April, UK retail would get smaller.
The chief executive of Marks & Spencer has called on the UK government to delay or ease planned tax and recycling charges, claiming the retail industry is being “raided like a piggy bank”.
