{"id":624902,"date":"2026-06-06T20:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624902\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T20:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:05:13","slug":"even-the-charity-shops-cant-survive-in-labours-high-tax-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624902\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the charity shops can\u2019t survive in Labour\u2019s high-tax Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The smart kitchen shop might well have closed down, and so might the fashion boutique, the bookshop, the bakery and very soon even the bookies might have to pull down the shutters for the last time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We are already very used to the way the typical British high street has been hollowed out during the last decade.<\/p>\n<p>Still, there was one thing we could surely always rely on. The charity shop. Exempt from crushing business rates, and often with volunteer staff, they would, as the great Curtis Mayfield put it in a song, \u201ckeep on keeping on\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Yet with this week\u2019s news that the <a class=\"ck-custom-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2026\/06\/05\/british-heart-foundation-shuts-150-shops\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">British Heart Foundation is closing 150 stores<\/a>, it seems even that is no longer true. It was never exactly the highlight of a day out at the shops.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With its collection of sofas that were a bit rubbish even when they were brand new sometime around 1983, its battered paperbacks and its cheap and cheerful birthday cards, the British Heart Foundation\u2019s shops were never anywhere close to the high-end of the retail market.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, with their bright red logos and cheerful staff, they were a great way of decluttering your house or furnishing a student apartment for your kids, and occasionally, you might find a real gem.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, they raised plenty of money for medical causes and, perhaps most importantly, they kept the high street alive for a decade when many more glamorous outlets were closing down. There is nothing not to like about any of that.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, charity shops have become a mainstay of British retailing. According to the Charity Retail Association, there are now more than 11,000 of them across the country, compared with an estimated 2,000 newsagents, 1,300 shoe shops and 5,000 hardware stores.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only the coffee shops, with an estimated 24,000 outlets, outnumber them in any serious way.<\/p>\n<p>A significant chunk of the British economy seemed to consist of people popping out for a coffee while volunteering at the charity shop. They had plenty going for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They qualified for an 80pc reduction in business rates, and councils had the authority to bump that up to 100pc if they wanted to, while donated goods were exempt from VAT when sold on. A lower tax bill meant they had a significant advantage over their mainstream competitors. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The trouble is, even that appears not to be enough anymore. Citing what Dr Charmaine Griffiths, its chief executive, described as an \u201cexceptionally challenging trading environment\u201d, the British Heart Foundation said on Friday that it planned to close a quarter of its outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The smart kitchen shop might well have closed down, and so might the fashion boutique, the bookshop, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[43981,84,5337,1294,211984,2053,209607,6884,209780,42032,56,1893,54,55],"class_list":["post-624902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-british-heart-foundation","tag-business","tag-comment","tag-economy","tag-jobs-and-employment","tag-labour-party","tag-matthew-lynn","tag-opinion","tag-retail-and-consumer-industry","tag-tax-rises","tag-uk","tag-uk-economy","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}