The recent announcement by the One Wales Government that additional help will be made available for small businesses facing an increase in their rates bill is a step in the right direction following the UK wide non-domestic property revaluation exercise. Revaluation is not a tax raising measure but simply redistributes the rates payable between properties according to their relative values at the time of the revaluation. Some rate bills will rise and some will fall. This Welsh business rate relief package will increase the upper limits for each category of small business rate relief by at least 20%. The upper rateable value limit for each category of relief will be as follows: upper limit for 50% general relief increased from a rateable value of £2,000 to £2,400, upper limit for 25% general relief increased from a rateable value of £6,500 to £7,800, upper limit for 25% retail relief increased from a rateable value of £9,000 to £11,000.

Over 60% of businesses will benefit from a reduction in the their rate bills as a result of the revaluation and the Assembly Government has already announced to reduce the multiplier that is used in calculating business rate bills from 0.489 to 0.409. There have been grave concerns from business across Pembrokeshire recently and this announcement by the One Wales Government is therefore a welcoming step in the right direction. It’s important that businesses are supported as much as possible during this difficult economic period. Unfortunately, the revaluation exercise is conducted by the Valuation Office Agency, which is an executive agency of the Inland Revenue and at present the Welsh Government does not have any power to change or delay the current Business Rate Revaluation as they are matters reserved for Westminster. However, with the limited powers it has, the Welsh Government has taken steps to support Welsh businesses which mean that from next April over half of all business premises in Wales could qualify for this relief. The fundamental issue is however that the current business tax system, which was introduced by the previous UK Conservative Government, is grossly unfair. As a party we firmly believe that the current system should be scrapped and replaced by a fairer graduated system of low tax, similar to income tax, which can be raised according to profit and not based on the size or value of a property. If the Tories win the next election then they need to tell us now if they'll change this unfair tax system so that they can start reversing some of the damage that they've done after introducing this system in the first place.