Snail farm in Liverpool office sparks tax avoidance probe
Snail farm in Liverpool office sparks tax avoidance probe
City leaders claim the "agricultural use" of the office is a "tactic" to avoid paying business rates.
A city centre office building has been home to a snail farm for more than a year, in what council bosses allege is an attempt to avoid tax.
About 15 covered crates - containing as few as two snails each - have been kept on the lower ground floor of 9 Dale Street, in Liverpool, since 2023.
Under current law, this could qualify as "agricultural use" and this part of the building would arguably be exempt from business rates.
The firm renting the space said it was a legitimate snail farming operation.
The company, Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd, shares its sole director, Terence Ball, with a company called BoyceBrook based in Ribchester, Lancashire.
BoyceBrook’s website says its team "has a proven track record of minimising the liability for empty property rates" and describes the company as the "Canceller of the Exchequer".
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Each crate contains two snails, according to L’Escargotiere, another company operated by Mr Ball, also based in Ribchester.
Its website says the number of snails per crate is kept to a minimum to avoid "cannibalism, group sex and snail orgies".
Looks like they tried to set up a shell corporation, but left behind a silvery trail of evidence of tax avoidance.
24silvery trail of evidence of tax avoidance.
There web site is the trail. It openly states that the purpose is to remove bisness rates from empty commercial property.
As the law means property used for farming is 0 rated.
They are not to bothered about slimy trails because tax avoidemce is legal.
Just seems to be the first time someone has come up with this implementation.
The question is. How quickly the local auth comes up with a way to claim it dose not meet planninf perposes or some such.
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Shouls be easy to prove: If the earnings from selling snails is lower than the costs, it should be quite clear that this is just tax avoidance.
11Can't help but wonder why there is a probe. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal.
And honestly, running a negative profit company is not really an effective solution. It's basically giving money away, so avoiding tax by not having any money.
Unless the person has some personal interest in snails. And in that case. Cool for him that has no moral issue. Non-profit companies are a common way of funding a charitable(ish) venture and perfectly legal.
It is more likely to be an evasion/criminal activity probe. IE, snails ain't what he is really selling.
1Because doing crap like this is how the rich avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
And yes running it a loss is a legitimate thing:
- Open up subsidiary company that you know/think will operate at a loss or near loss
- Use the negative profit to offset positive profit from another subsidiary (main operations for example)
- Parent company now has lower NET Profit!! Thus paying less in taxes since your "income" is now much lower than it was before.
- Laugh at the taxman because you just got away with stealing from your countrymen
That's just an off the cuff example, obviously it can be a little more complicated depending on the jurisdiction
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I actually farmed snails, no lie, sold Mystery Snails on Aquabid.com and eBay. Shipping got to be a pain and I was only making about $9 per order. You have to have cold packs in the summer and hot packs in the winter, so there's that as well.
It was fun, but if you want to raise multiple colors, you have to have multiple tanks and cull them properly, which I didn't have the heart to do.
LOL, just checked aquabid and the same seller is still dominating the Mystery Snail market since I did it 10 years ago. You go Gu2high!
Damn. Now I'm thinking about ranching some more springtails. Throw 'em in a plastic container with water, lump charcoal and a tiny speck of fish food, BAM, a thousand more pop out.
5Wat
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