Small Business Rates…

During the last round of Local Ratepayers meetings in July, it was suggested that it might be helpful to provide some text to help remind your members about the availability of rate relief for small businesses.

Tony Capp from our Data Strategy team has now provided this information for the LRF members:

“Members are reminded that the Government’s Small Business Rare Relief scheme is still open for applications.  The scheme gives up to 50% off rate bills for qualifying business properties and applications can be backdated to April 2007.

To qualify, the rateable value of your property must be below £15,000 (or £21,500 in London) and you must occupy just that one property (though you may still qualify if the rateable values of any other properties you occupy all have a rateable value below £2,200).

The benefits of the scheme are:

• Rate relief on a sliding scale, with the greatest reduction in bills applying to properties with a rateable value below £5,000, where relief of 50% is available.
• Relief reduces by 1% for every £100 of rateable value above this level.  So, for example, a qualifying property with a rateable value of £7,000 would get relief worth 30%.
• All properties within the scheme including those with rateable values up to £15,000 (or £21,500 in London) pay the small business multiplier (which is 48.1p in 2009-10, compared to the standard multiplier of 48.5p).
• Full details of the scheme are available at <http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1073792393>

Applications should be made to your local authority as soon as possible.”