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Online Sales Tax
The government has announced its plans to consult and explore the arguments for and against the introduction of an ‘Online Sales Tax’.
Should such a tax be introduced in future, it would raise revenue to fund business rates reductions.
Business rates review
Business rates have been devolved to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The government announced at Budget 2020 that it would conduct a fundamental review of the business rates system in England. The government’s objectives for the review were reducing the overall burden on business, improving the current business rates system and allowing the consideration of more fundamental changes in the long term.
In March 2021, the government published the Interim Report of the review. The Final Report was published on 27 October 2021. Collectively, these set out the government’s commitments by:
• Supporting local high streets as they adapt and recover from the pandemic by introducing a new temporary business rates relief in England for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties
for 2022/23. Over 90% of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will receive at least 50% off their business rates bills in 2022/23. This amounts to support worth more than double the relief that was announced pre-COVID for the 2020 to 2021 financial year and includes additional businesses such as hotels, gyms and bowling alleys.
• Cutting the burden of business rates for all businesses by freezing the multiplier for 2022 to 2023.
• Introducing a new relief to support investment
in property improvements, enabling occupying businesses to invest in expanding their properties and making them work better for customers
and employees.
• Introducing new measures to support green investment and the decarbonisation of non- domestic buildings. This will provide exemptions for eligible green plant and machinery such as solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage used with renewables and electric vehicle charging points, as well as a 100% relief for low-carbon heat networks that have their own rates bill.
• Making the system fairer by moving to three-yearly revaluations from 2023.
• Providing stability ahead of the 2023 revaluation by extending Transitional Relief and the Supporting Small Business Scheme for 2022 to 2023 to protect small businesses from significant bill increases in the final year of the current revaluation cycle.
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Business