Mackay announces rates concessions
NEW properties will not be billed until occupied for a year and improved buildings will get a year-long holiday from business rates under reforms to the system.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay yesterday confirmed the changes as he accepted most of the recommendations in the Barclay Review.
Mr Mackay also announced plans to abolish rates for day nurseries, regarded as a tax on childcare.
He deferred decisions on the most controversial elements, including a plan for private schools to lose £5 million of reliefs, with arm’s-length council bodies, sports clubs and some golf courses also losing theirs.
Mr Mackay backed away from a £62.5m plan to cut the 2.6p large business supplement paid by 22,000 properties to 1.3p by 2020.
The Federation of Small Businesses said the review of small business relief must design the best rates for firms, not serve as “an excuse to withdraw help”.
Councils welcomed the decision to consult on cutting £45m of reliefs from organisations, such as leisure trusts.
SCOTLAND is to pioneer a series of reforms to business rates to help boost the economy.
New build properties will not be billed until occupied for a year, improved buildings will get a year-long rate holiday, and rates for day nurseries will be abolished.
Finance Secretary Derek Mackay confirmed the changes, the first of their kind in the UK, as he accepted most of the 30-recommendations on reform in the recent Barclay Review.
However, he deferred decisions on the most controversial elements of the review until later this year, pending further consultation.
This includes a proposal that private schools should lose £5 million of reliefs, with arm’s-length council bodies, sports clubs and some golf courses also losing theirs.
Mr Mackay also backed away from a £62.5 million plan to cut the 2.6p large business supplement paid by 22,000 properties to 1.3p by 2020.
He told MSPs he would aim to do so by 2021, reversing a raise made in 2016/17, but only “should it become affordable”.
Other measures include a move to threeyear revaluations from 2022, a crackdown on loopholes, new fines for firms failing to provide information to assessors, a review of the Small Business Bonus Scheme, and a review of hydro plant and machinery valuations.
Mr Mackay also rejected putting farms on the valuation roll and levying business rates on commercial agricultural processing.
However, Mr Mackay said the most important change was the Business Growth Accelerator, offering rates relief for a year to the occupiers of new, improved and six-month vacant properties.
Tory Murdo Fraser said ending rates relief for sports clubs and council leisure centres would undermine Government policy “in encouraging active lifestyles and tackling obesity”.
Green MSP Andy Wightman criticised the “narrow remit” of the review and said it was “not the thorough and comprehensive review of the system promised”.
The Scottish Tourism Alliance, the British Hospitality Association, and the Scottish Licensed Trade Association said they were “hugely encouraged.”