Earlier this week, the chancellor's Autumn statement clarified various aspects for business rates in the upcoming 2024/25 financial year.
In welcome news, the chancellor extended the 75% discount which has been so crucial to many businesses across the country. Unfortunately, there is still a £110,000 annual cap on this discount, limiting how much support medium and large businesses can receive.
The small business multiplier has been frozen at 0.499 for a further year. This means for any property with a rateable value below 51000 the annual charge, before accounting for any reliefs, will be 0.499 of the rateable value.
However, the standard multiplier (the rate used for properties with rateable values of 51000 and higher) will rise in line with inflation, meaning a multiplier of 0.546. Since April 2020, the standard multiplier has been 0.512. This is significant; this large increase, in combination with the continued £110,000 cash cap on the 75% discount, means medium and large businesses will see major increases to their bill in the 2024/25 financial year.
Notably, in the 2023/24 year, inflation was removed when calculating how much a bill can increase by if a property's rateable value increased from the 2017 rating list to the 2023 rating list. It would appear inflation is being reintroduced to the calculation as well as higher base transitional caps, meaning businesses who saw large increases to their rateable values will be met with exponentially surging costs.
It is lost on no one how convoluted the business rates system is. Holloway Bond want to offer stability, clarification and transparency for our clients. Whilst businesses can expect their 2024/25 rates bill in March 2024, we are happy to provide a service using our predictive software to tell you what your bill will be four months in advance. We can further audit your portfolio to tell you where you could reduce your costs, not just moving forward- but also historically to save you as much money as possible.
Please get in touch with us on 02080950990 or info@hollowaybond.co.uk to learn more!
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