the fine should be proportional to the recoevry costs – and should be a fixed amout of say 30 pounds with no blacklisting – this may save small business's from going under which in the long run is better for the economy.
the current way of calculating late payment VAT fines is totally out of propotion to the cost of recovery – for small business, who may miss a payment by a day or so you can end up getting fined 15% of your total bill, this can lead to further harrasment and threatening letters if you cannot pay the fine, also it can take 12 months to remove yourself from their blacklist – which again is totally unfair and biased towards the HMRC