Associates of Snai1 Primary Products 2023 Ltd state on their website that its team “has a proven track record of minimising the liability for empty property rates” and describes its company as the “Canceller of the Exchequer”.
This is how this works. A business has an empty building on which it pays business rates. The solution in this case was to change the use of the building to agricultural use and claim an exemption from paying business rates. To do this a snail farm was set up.
Liverpool City Council, however, is convinced that the snail farm is not viable at this scale and the actual money being made is the saving of the business rates not being paid. The council has described the business as an attempt to avoid tax.
There are 15 crates each containing two snails. On questioning by the council, the snail farm’s operators suggested that the number of snails being kept was a legitimate minimum number to avoid “cannibalism, group sex and snail orgies”.
Suppliers of snails L’Escargotiere sells snails in 1kg bags (that’s about 200 snails) for £14 a bag, making the cost of setting up a snail farm very cheap.
On consulting legitimate major snail producers, the council was told that to make a viable trading snail farm, thousands of snails would be needed and would require a great deal of feeding and cleaning. Snails would need to be replaced every three to four weeks.
This tactic has been attempted on numerous previous occasions and, in 2021, the High Court made the situation clear when it ruled that the scheme is designed as an avoidance objective.
A Liverpool City Council spokesman said: “The misuse of the agricultural exemption with the use of ‘snail farms’ in commercial premises is a business rates avoidance tactic that has been attempted in Liverpool.
“To date, no agricultural exemption has been awarded on commercial premises, and the Council’s Business Rates Team continues to monitor the situation closely and will not hesitate to take further action and challenge such tactics to protect public funds and maintain a fair and efficient tax system for all ratepayers.”