true, it does seems odd as the shops been around for some time and is well liked, it does make me think he may have been neglecting his accounts/administration as to be fair the amount of tax is usually pretty easy to calculate from the sales and profits of the business..
Also although HMRC automatically send a variety of scary letters they can in fact be suprisingly reasonable when business owners actually enter into dialogue with them (respecting the fact that they will have to pay some tax). My employers have had a variety of these things (sometimes sent due to computers at HMRC being overzealous, or even minor delays in bank transfers) but a single phone call often solves matters very quickly indeed.
It would be a pity to lose one of the rare e-bike dealers in Suffolk, (another one shut up their shop and went to breed cats!) but its surely obvious that in an economic depression sales of new goods wiil drop, also the cycling culture there is often a mixture of teenagers without cars and older retired people so that will be the customer segments his business competes for, I am not surprised repairs have become the bulk of his business..
I thought it worth flagging here as it shows the pressures the entire market is under - despite cycling actually becoming more popular here....
