Pub and restaurant owners fear jobs will be lost and businesses will close as their taxes and costs rocket.
Landlords, restaurateurs and high street retailers in Suffolk and north Essex are braced for eye-watering rises in their business rates in April.
A three-yearly revaluation by officials at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) means many have seen a big uptick in their rateable values - based on a theoretical annual rent.
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A pounds and pence multiplier is used to work out how much businesses will pay. Other extra costs they face include a big rise in Employers' National Insurance (NI) which came in in April this year and rises in the Minimum and Living Wage.
Hospitality and retail are large employers and many staff are part-time - which means their NI burden is much higher.
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In last week's Budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves said retail and hospitality businesses would be helped - but business owners say the rates relief they are getting is not nearly enough.
"The previous valuation was in the middle of the pandemic, and so lots of business are seeing big increases in their Rateable Values to reflect post-Covid recovery," the government admitted last week as it announced some measures to alleviate the effects including more multiplier bands to help the smallest businesses.
Tom West, owner of Jolly Good Pubs which has three pubs - the Nelson in Ipswich, the Red Lion in Manningtree and the Marlborough in Dedham - feared the reliefs would have little positive impact on his business as the on-paper value of pubs like his is too high.
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Having gone through the figures, he estimates he will see a 73% rise in business rates next year - even worse than his initial fears.
"I wasn't sure about the business rates but I have been proved right," he said. "It's not good."
The extra burdens could cause the cost of a pint of beer to rocket by 10%, he said.
The rates at the Red Lion will go up from £10,479 this year to £13,752 next year while the Nelson rises from £9,481 to £13,465, he said.
The overall increase across the three sites is £25,702. "Before we’ve opened the turn the lights on and open the doors we will be paying £60,905 in tax," he said.
He is angry at the government for "talking down" the economy before the Budget - which he feels dampened sentiment - then failing to be straightforward and simple with the measures it is introducing.
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"The whole build-up was doom, doom, doom," he said. Suppliers that support his business are also being hit with a big rise in warehousing costs which would have a knock-on effect, he added.
"It's not just the business rates and the employment costs - it's going to have an effect on every product we sell as well," he said.
"I feel more nervous now than I was after the Budget - now we are starting to see the detail and starting to do the maths."
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He feels the government isn't offering anything for independent businesses like his.
"I think there's going to be a huge amount of closures - there are a lot of zombie businesses already," he said.
"I feel we have arrived at the party and all the good stuff has gone off the buffet."
Paul Milsom - who owns Milsoms Hotels and Restaurants - said government already recognised that business rates were an unfair tax but had failed to act.
The hotelier and restaurateur - who owns Milsoms Kesgrave Hall in Ipswich - criticised the Budget as "very confusing", lacking in business content - and late.
The rateable value on his Dedham site will rise from £130k to £248k, adding to the strain already felt from last year's Budget.
Rates and relief are complex, he said, and plans to make it easier for councils to add a local "per night" tax will weigh hotels down more.
Corporation tax would be a far fairer way of spreading the tax burden he added.
"It's against a backdrop of our industry being probably the most taxed industry in the country because of what we sell," he said.
"In the late 1990s rates weren't a major factor in the running of businesses like ours," he said.
But successive governments had added to the burden, he said. During the covid pandemic they were given a "holiday" from the tax for two years as their businesses were closed.
Then for a further two years there was a capped discount of 75% then 40%. Now government was moving it towards a full rate.
Early indications were that government would opt for a 20p reduction in the multiplier but in the end it chose to offer just 5p, he said. "It really doesn't move the dial."
"It's such a bad tax," he said. "The business rates for online is tiny by comparison."
Many landlords will be appealing their revaluations, he said, but in the meantime they were faced with a tax that has to be paid upfront, he said.
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His family business - which celebrates its 75th year next year - would weather the storm, he said.
"It's definitely survival of the fittest," he said. "We are putting on our hard hat and finding different ways to get through this period of time - but it's very tricky out there."
Philip Turner, founder of the Chestnut Group - which owns 26 pubs and hotels in the region - said their calculation was that the extra on their rates bill over the next few years "could be something approaching £1m".
"The sector is over-taxed," he said. The Budget was also contradictory and failed to make sense, he added. But the government had the opportunity to fix it, he added.
"The rate is massively higher than the Amazon businesses are going to be paying on their online retailing sheds."
Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, said the 5p business rates discount was "simply not enough" to offset added costs.
"We have a situation where hospitality businesses are checking their wage bills and rateable values, and their hearts are sinking at the eye-watering increases before them."
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