Bush Hall Needs Your Help

Help Save Music at Bush Hall from Bush Hall on Vimeo.

Bush Hall needs your help. Bush Hall is an independent music and events venue in Shepherd's Bush, which is currently "in grave danger of losing its unique live music facility". The owners of Bush Hall, Charlie Raworth and Emma Hutchinson, have launched a crowdfunder appeal at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-save-music-at-bush-hall, hoping to raise £40,000 to secure the future of Bush Hall. 

Help the Masbro Centre Run on Sunshine

The Masbro Centre in Brook Green is crowdfunding new solar panels, to help our neighbourhood go a little more green (and help them save money on their electricity bills).

The Urban Partnership Group want to install 64 solar panels to the roof of the Masbro Community Centre, to generate its own electricity and use the funds saved for much needed community projects.

To contribute a few spare pennies this Christmas for a local cause, follow this link. 

Council Tax To Rise - But Should it?

Hammersmith Town Hall

Hammersmith & Fulham Council says it will impose a 2.7% increase in our Council Tax bills from April 2019.

LBHF says the rise is needed because of "central government austerity and rising demand for services".

But is a tax rise really necessary? We think there is a better way.

Self-Employed To Be Forced To File Tax Returns Four Times a Year

It's a funny business, politics. Recently we reported on how our Labour-controlled Council is set to privatise Council housing in Shepherd's Bush, a policy normally associated with the Conservatives.

By contrast, Chancellor George Osbourne's war on landlords, and his huge hikes in Stamp Duty, look suspiciously like Labour party policies.  But it still comes as a shock to find our Government waging a new war on small businesses, by forcing self-employed people to file their taxes no less than four times a year.

This massive new increase in red tape (not to mention accountancy costs) comes into force in 2020, and will damage precisely the people who the Conservative party traditionally supports - aspirational small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Tories Kill Off Buy-To-Let

Treasury offices, Great George St.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The changes in tax credits may have made the headlines, but in fact private landlords were the biggest losers in last week's budget, when chancellor George Osborne changed the rules for the deductibility of mortgage interest for rental properties, effectively killing off the economics of buy-to-let.

From 2017, the amount of interest that landlords can claim in tax relief will be limited to the basic rate of tax – greatly increasing their tax bill.  The treasury described this as a way to "level the playing field for homebuyers and investors" - but in fact it does nothing of the kind.  It is simply a tax grab directed at landlords, greatly worsening the economics of renting property, and meaning that landlords will pay tax on money they have not even earned.