Good news on next years rates!

[Moray Kitchen Fitter]

... I wonder what the qualifying criteria will be?

According to my business plan I will be in an office come Februrary next year (sounds nice!) - this might just help a bit!

SNP to make rates relief pledge

Regards,

Gordon

[Rickwood Portpatrick]

Hi Gordon

This isn`t anything new - it`s just the usual regurgitation of old news to make it sound as if "they" are doing something!
As far as I know, if your rateable value is under £3500 the relief for 08/09 is 80 percent rising to 100 percent for 09/10 & 10/11
Businesses with higher rateable values recieve lower rate of discount up to , I think rv of £11,500
This is certainly the situation in Dumfries & Galloway, however I think it applies throughout Scotland. Your council rates dept should keep you right
O K , now that you have saved all that money, how about a short break in an award winning guest house in Portpatrick?
regards

Fred Findlay

[davidk]

Fred

Your figures are slightly out.

From April 2008/9 all businesses in Scotland with a Combined Rateable Value of £8000 or less qualified for a Rates Bonus Discount of 80%. Those businesses CRV of £8001-£10000qualify for 40% and £10001 to £15000 get 20%. For the years 2009/10 and 2010/11 the applicable discounts are 100%; 50% and 40% in each qualifying category. It may also interest you to know the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) was the only business organisation representing the small business sector to call for a more genrous rates relief scheme ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2007. The FSB wrote to the Finance Secretary on 24th January 2008 with contructive recommendation to implement the Small Business Bonus Scheme over 2 years rather then the intended 3 years.

As a member of the FSB I can honestly say that without their support and continued lobbying in the right places many small businesses would not enjoy this generous discount offered by the Scottish government.