Estimates by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) have shown that the amount generated through business rates will surpass tax and fuel duty in the 2015\/2016 year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Business rates is a controversial tax levied on property, and has received widespread criticism over the last few years for its hindering effect on SMEs and the struggling retail sector.\u00a0 Under current plans, however, business rates will continue to rise, amounting to an estimated increase of 41% over the decade.\u00a0 This is according to the OBR\u2019s latest figures, which show that the rise will take place between 2008 and 2018 and mean an added \u00a39.4bn of tax generated revenue for the Treasury.<\/p>\n
Paul Turner-Mitchell, a business rates expert who compiled the figures, said the increase was \u201cdisproportionate\u201d compared to other taxes.<\/p>\n
According to a new analysis, business rates are growing at almost the same level as council tax and fuel duty combined.<\/p>\n
In response, retailers are calling for Chancellor George Osborne to extend a period of relief measures put in place in last year\u2019s Autumn Statement.\u00a0 These include capping the annual inflation-linked increase in rates at 2%, offering a potential discount of \u00a31,000 for small businesses.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, manufacturers have warned the Chancellor that business rates risk \u201cseriously undermining\u201d the attractiveness of the UK for investment and could damage the economy.<\/p>\n
In a letter they wrote: \u201cBusiness rates is one of the very few taxes which are non-cyclical and fixed at a level irrespective of economic or market conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFixed costs are given much greater prominence over taxes when making investment decisions and therefore huge comparative distortions (with the rest of Europe) are seriously undermining the UK\u2019s case as a destination for investment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Estimates by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) have shown that the amount generated through business rates will surpass tax and fuel duty in the 2015\/2016 year.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}