This week: 12 September 2024

There’s a snail in my building

What was your reaction to the widely published story that 15 crates of snails were being kept in an office block in Liverpool in an attempt to show that the building was used for agricultural purposes and thus was exempt from business rates? Did you see this as a piece of outrageous tax avoidance akin to paying bonuses in platinum sponge or did you chuckle to yourself at the ingenuity of the idea? Perhaps there was a bit of both.

Most readers won’t have had much cause to deal with business rates and may be unaware of the extent of avoidance in this area. This snail farming device has in fact already been before the courts in Isle Investments Limited v Leeds City Council (tinyurl.com/ewhcisleinv) where on the specific facts it was held to be a sham. I recall from my...