possibly but irrelevant.
My last few posts addressed the effect that brexit and the likelihood that we will be out of the Single Market may have on small businesses. You tried to link it to snowbirds, OK. Let's discuss it. Before the UK even joined the EU, relationship with Europe was already good. Brits already lived there. There is no reason why that can't continue. They may need to apply for residency permits like in the old days but these permits are usually valid for 10 years. It's not a big issue.
You imagine that, not me.
That's your view. The brexit debate makes people see sense. It goes the same way for both groups of voters. I hope my last few posts have helped with putting the case for brexit from the point of view of millions of small businesses to remainers. Millions of SMEs have already had a hard time with ebay and amazon, brexit will help with reducing competition from the big companies (including ebay and amazon) that the EU has helped to prosper.
How will Brexit protect small companies from e-bay and Amazon. Don't forget that many of the fraudulent traders on those sites are small companies but trading out of Hong Kong.....Theresa May intends us to be an open trade country,that will only
help those Chinese companies.
Imagine if you sold every Woosh bike without charging vat and putting the vat in your pocket,that would allow you to sell at a much lower price and still keep good profits,customers don't mind ,they like the cheaper prices.
But HMRC would be soon investigating your business,but if you sold Woosh bikes out of Hong Kong via E-bay and distributed through a fulfilment warehouse in the UK (the warehouses often owned by E-bay or Amazon),you would have a dodgy vat number and a name 'Jacky Chan' trading out of a nondescript office in a tenament building in Shenzhen,HMRC will ignore you because you are difficult to pin down.
I actually tried to find one of these traders in Ningbo,the building had been pulled down!
This is not small business,I had a plier set that sold for £29.00,a Chinese trader sold it for £24.50,delivered free.....I sold maybe 5 per month,the Chinese trader sold 4,400 in a year. As an experiment I sold it for £21.50 delivered free,actually cost price,we sold loads.....after a few days the Chinese guy came down to £19.80,he can still make a profit at that price but defraud the vat. The kings of this business were Babz media,they got a revenue up to £19million,probably got too big,they were fined for not paying battery disposal costs and correct postal charges....overnight they disappeared,suspect sunning themselves in the Cayman Islands,HMRC got nowhere near them.
I know of many small UK companies who have given up on trading on e-bay because you cannot make a profit unless you defraud the vat man.
Shame,because it's a great way of fledgling UK companies to get going without big capital cost.
KudosDave