The Local Government Finance Bill includes a range of measures to cut business rates for small businesses and local amenities.
They include:
- bringing rural rate reliefs into line with those in urban areas – currently, eligible small businesses in rural areas benefit from a 50% discount on their business rates. The Bill will double this, bringing it into line with rate reliefs in urban areas
- rate reliefs on public toilets – councils are currently required to charge themselves business rates on the public toilets they are responsible for, and cannot grant themselves any rate reliefs. This Bill will change that, and allow councils to provide rate relief to all public toilets, making it cheaper for councils to keep them open in their areas.