We need an ETHOS and CULTURE of promoting enterprise!

Quite often, entrepreneurs who start new businesses are surprised by the problems they face in their first few years in business. For sure, when I first started my firm, I felt that if I could just overcome a particular problem that had arisen, it would be downhill thereafter.

But those of us who have been in business for a while know that business is all about problem solving and facing challenges on an ongoing basis. As one challenge passes another will ALWAYS take its place. That is the nature of the beast.

As entrepreneurs we work hard to meet these challenges. Most of us make lots of mistakes on our way to success. Many of our ideas just don't work - but we think again and try another idea until we find one that does work. This battling can be stressful - but also personally rewarding when things do eventually come right!

But none of us is in business simply to feel good! We have taken personal and financial risks to start our businesses and we want to see the financial rewards.

The disappointment for me (and surely the owners of small businesses up and down the country) is that our government does nothing of significance to promote and encourage small business. Indeed, our government's legislation and beaurocracy are road blocks for small businesses.

Small businesses are critical to our economy's success. They create employment and wealth. According to the government's own statistics (which I have taken from the Small Business Service) the number of single person small businesses at the start of 2005 was 3.2 million. There were a further 1.2 million small businesses which had extra employees.

The entrepreneurs who have started these businesses have started them in spite of our government, not because of it. This is what needs to change.

Without the small business sector there would be large scale unemployment. On top of that, we would lose the commercial innovation that comes from the small business sector - estimated by the Federation of Small Business to be 64% of all commercial innovation in the UK.

Our nation needs a government that will take an in depth look at the way its legislation and beaurocracy impact small business, one that will free entrepreneurs from red tape and make it simpler for them to start and run successful businesses. We need a government that offers good and permenant tax breaks for enterprise. Most importantly, we need a government that makes a SERIOUS and GENUINE effort to encourage small business. We need a CULTURE and ETHOS that promotes enterprise instead of token gestures that are clawed back in the end anyway.

We need to let our entrepreneurs off the leash!

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Antony J. Holdsworth & Co is a firm of Tax Advisors & Chartered Management Accountants that specialises in small owner managed businesses and IR35 freelancers. Visit us online at: http://www.antonyjholdsworth.co.uk/

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