Andy Burnham’s new business rates adviser has previously called for up to £9bn of tax cuts for businesses, arguing the levy had become an “increasingly excessive burden” on firms.
Jerry Schurder, who was appointed this week to lead an independent review of the business rates system for pubs and hotels, made the case in a 2019 written submission to the Treasury select committee, at a time when he was head of business rates at property consultancy Gerald Eve.
In the submission, made as part of the committee’s inquiry into the impact of business rates on business, Mr Schurder argued that the business rates multiplier, the figure used to calculate a company’s property tax bill, should be reduced by around a third for all companies.
He admitted that a cut of such a “magnitude” would have cost the Treasury between £8bn and £9bn a year, but said the change was needed to fix a tax system that had “become out of kilter since 1990”.
“Businesses are more understanding of the need to pay taxes when they operate successfully, but feel aggrieved that they have to pay significant business rates at the outset of their ownership or occupation of property, sometimes before they have even opened for trade, let alone made a profit,” he told MPs.
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