Firms Go Bust in Nine Weeks

from a London reader The following report which appeared in the Sunday Times of April 24th is an interesting indication of how the concentration of British industrial capital is going ahead under Labour, indeed accelerated by Labour: “Over 4,500 British companies reckoned to be worth £45 million have ceased to exist in the past nine weeks. In an unprecedented scramble which started at the end of February and accelerated into a full-scale rush over the last two weeks of the financial year the number of companies going -. into voluntary liquidation rocketed. In the week ending April 1 the London Gazette carried 872 notices announcing the winding up resolutions. The following week it published 868, Normally the figures are 150-200 a weeke All liquidation notiees have to appear in the Gazette within 14 days. "Last Thursday the paper published an additional list to accomodate advert= isements. They have been coming in parcels of 50 to 80 at a time, Friday's London Gazette added another 58 (some of which apply to the 1966-67 ©. financial year) making the week's total of winding-up resolutions 507. Behind the rush lie Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax. Midnight, April 5 was the deadline for companies who wanted to wind up, transfer their businesses and start afresh with a new structure = perhaps in the form of a partnership - and either avoid Corporation Tax liability or with a new company designed to meet it. One tax advisor reports an extreme case of a man still trying to make up his mind at 11 p.m. on April 5 whether to appoint a liquidator or note Many of the companies who have appointed liquidators are in the property and investment field, But overall they range wide = from subsidiazies of large groups like Cyril Lord, Dubonnet, Massey-Ferguson to small operations with assets of £2,000. It also includes people like Barro Equities with total assets of £8 million"