Revo calls on government to cap business rates at 30% as part of consultation

The membership organisation for landlords and retailers has called on the government to cap future business rates multipliers at 30% from the 2023 revaluation, a “drastic” move Revo said would save high street businesses £3bn a year. 

Business rates currently multiply by 51% at revaluation, and Revo said capping the increase would create more of a “level playing field” for bricks-and-mortar businesses versus pureplay retailers. 

In a nod to its struggling landlord members, Revo also called for the freeze on business rates to be extended to empty retail properties and for a 50% relief to be introduced for all retail properties next year, “to prevent a cliff-edge in April 2021” when current measures expire. 

Revo chief executive Vivienne King said: “Successive governments have failed to deliver on promises to reform business rates, and given the crisis engulfing the high street, it really is a case of now or never.”

Real estate firm Colliers International has joined Revo in calling for changes to the business rates multiplier, which it says at current 51% levels is “unsustainable”. 

Colliers has urged a rebasing of the multiplier to levels last seen in 1990, and criticised the lack of political accountability for the growth in business rates levels since. 

The government launched a call for evidence on business rates reform in July, following a commitment from the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, at the spring statement. 

The first part of the call for evidence has closed today, with a second round of submissions being accepted until October 31. 

At the time, the government pledged to “reduce the overall burden of the system on businesses” in the shorter term and consider “more fundamental” changes in the medium to long term.