09/04/2009 - Calls for rural business rate cuts
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is calling for a rural recession rate relief scheme in the Budget to help companies which have seen trade half during the downturn.
The organisation hopes the Government will introduce an automatic relief scheme to run for a fixed period of 12 months to help rural businesses cope.
Around £400 million goes unclaimed every year because small firms are unaware they are entitled to rate relief, by making it automatic the FSB hopes it will ease some of the pressures on these small firms.
Currently the third largest expenditure faced by SMEs is their business rates bill. The FSB hopes a rate cut will give a lifeline to small firms that are at the heart of many of the country's rural communities.
The call comes after a poll revealed eight in 10 rural businesses are seeing costs rise with one in three are expecting difficult trading condition during the next six months.
Linda Walton, FSB rural affairs chairman, said: "Rural businesses have been quietly suffering during these testing times just as much as big, city businesses.
"The rural recession rate relief scheme could be the difference between the death of small rural communities or their survival."
Copyright © Press Association 2009
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