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Chancellor Phillip Hammond has today bought forward the planned business rates switch from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the Consumers Prices Index (CPI) by two years, says commercial property agent Prop-Search, as part of ongoing measures to help businesses.
So from April 2018, business rates will switch from being linked to the RPI rather than this CPI, which is estimated to save businesses some 2.3 billion over the next five years.
Samantha Jones, an Associate Director of Prop-Search, says: “The early introduction of this change follows heavy lobbing, with a number of businesses warning that the Government’s revaluation of the Ratable Value of commercial property was crippling them and could drastically push up costs. Whilst both RPI and CPI both measure inflation, RPI tends to result in higher costs.”
In today’s Autumn Budget, the Chancellor also announced measures to solve the ‘staircase tax’ - extending the £1,000 discount for pubs with Rateable Values of less than £100,000. This will now be extended for another year to March 2019.
And finally, business rates revaluations will now take place every three years, rather than every five years, starting after the next revaluation - currently due in 2022.
Further information or advice can be obtained from Prop-Search - Tel: 01933 223300 / 01604 492000 or its website: www.prop-search.com