Yesterday in the Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne announced rates relief for small businesses has been extended and the annual £1,000 rebate for small retailers, shops and restaurants, has been raised to £1,500.
Small businesses are the ‘lifeblood of the economy‘, Chancellor George Osborne said in the Autumn Statement. He has expected a completion of business rates by early 2016.
Osborne announced before the Autumn Statement that the government would give small and medium-sized UK businesses a £900m lending package.
“The government‘s long-term economic plan is working with the Funding for Lending Scheme playing a vital role in supporting the recovery,” Osborne said.
The Chancellor also used his statement to announce “a cash injection of almost £1 billion for small businesses, designed to put them at the heart of the recovery. A scheme to reward banks for lending to businesses will be extended for a year and refocused on small firms too.”
He has continued the current scheme which ‘exempts businesses with a rateable value of £6,000 and then offers tapered relief for those valued up to £12,000. That takes 360,000 businesses out of the system and reduces rates for a further 180,000. He also increased a discount for high street businesses with a rateable value up to £50,000, including shops, pubs and cafes, to £1,500 from £1,000 at present.‘
During the statement delivered in parliament, Mr Osborne also commented on plans for changing VAT charges on hospices and signalled a “golden age” for the creative industry.
David McCorquodale, head of retail at KPMG said: “This extension of rates relief and discounts is merely a short-term sticking plaster solution. All eyes are on the wider overhaul of this archaic system, which must be changed to level the playing field, so retailers with store networks can compete more fairly with their online competitors.”
George Osborne said the government will carry out a review of the future structure of business rates and will publish its interim findings from its review in December 2015.
