Tuesday 15 August 2017

Small Business Rate Relief **Update 2017**

Small business rates relief explained (Updated for 2017)

It is not common knowledge among small businesses that the local council may be able to offer you a discount on your rates, if your business or the property you occupy fit certain criteria.

We think the following information will help explain this for you:

Some properties are eligible for discounts on their business rates. This is called ‘business rates relief’.
Your local council will automatically apply some reliefs. Contact your local council if you’re not getting the discounts you think you’re entitled to.
You can get small business rate relief if:
  • you only use one property (in some circumstances, more than 1)
  • your property’s rateable value is less than £15,000


WHAT YOU GET

You won’t pay business rates on a property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less.
For properties with a rateable value of £12,001 to £15,000, the rate of relief will go down gradually from 100% to 0%.


YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE PROPERTY

When you get a second property, you’ll keep getting any existing relief on your main property for 12 months.
You can still get small business rate relief on your main property after this if both the following apply:
  • none of your other properties have a rateable value above £2,899
  • the total rateable value of all your properties is less than £20,000


YOU’RE A SMALL BUSINESS BUT DON’T QUALIFY FOR RELIEF

If your property in England has a rateable value below £51,000, your bill will be calculated using the small business multiplier, which is lower than the standard one. This is the case even if you don’t get small business rate relief.
The small business multiplier is 46.6p and the standard multiplier is 47.9p from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018.

The multiplier shows the percentage (pence in the pound) of the rateable value that you pay in business rates. A list of currentmultipliers is on the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) website.

We hope you find this useful and if you have any other commercial property query, please do not hesitate in contacting us.

Belvoir Commercial
commercial@belvoirandover.com
01264 366611