Plaid’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Llanelli, Myfanwy Davies and local AM Helen Mary Jones are backing Bingo players at Llanelli’s Argos Bingo club as they ask the Chancellor to reconsider a tax hike on Bingo that may put the club’s future in jeopardy. Myfanwy visited Argos Bingo Club on Monday March 1st to hand over letters to the Chancellor for bingo players to sign and return to them.
Last Summer the Labour Government announced it would drastically increase taxes on Bingo while taxes on all other forms of gambling would remain the same. Llanelli’s Bingo players travelled down to Westminster to protest against this unfair treatment. Myfanwy and Plaid MPs met with the protesters and offered their support. In contrast to Llanelli’s Labour MP, who voted for the tax increase, Plaid MPs have consistently voted against this unfair tax.
Nonetheless, tax on bingo is still increasing from 15-20% and will severely effect clubs such as the Argos in Llanelli. The last chance for the Government to review the decision will be at the Spring Budget and so Myfanwy and Helen Mary want to be sure that the Chancellor understands the depth of opposition to the changes in Llanelli before he makes those decisions.
Myfanwy said: “The last thing Llanelli needs is to loose the Argos Club. It is a place to meet and to socialise, particularly for older people, and it provides jobs in the town centre. Like many town centre businesses, the Argos Club has seen fewer customers coming through the doors and at a time like this, it deserves Government help - not this unfair tax-hike.
Why should casinos in London still be taxed at the original rate and the future of our Bingo club be put at risk? I hope the Chancellor will take this last chance to show that he understands communities like ours.”
Helen Mary said: “This is an unjust tax on people’s enjoyment. It is in hard times that you can tell what a Government’s priorities are. The Labour Government and it’s local MP, who voted to keep the tax increase last summer, have very different priorities from ours. But we hope that the letters will demonstrate to the Chancellor the depth of feeling against the tax and that he will reconsider adding this additional burden to one of our landmark town-centre businesses”.
Nigel Griffiths, Manager of the Argos Bingo Club said: “These have been very difficult times. Particularly during January, we were seeing very few of our usual customers. We hope very much that the Government will think again about raising the tax. After all, if it drives us all out of business, it will not be able to collect the tax in any case”.
Copies of the letter have been left at the Argos Club and will be presented to Elfyn Llwyd, the leader of the Plaid Parliamentary Group, when he visits Llanelli next Monday (15th)
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