SCOTLAND’s hospitality sector led the attack on business rates earlier this year, claiming the current system and a slow and onerous revaluations process had left it facing impossible, unsustainable hikes.
Yesterday, there was cautious welcome of some of what Ken Barclay proposed in his review.
Willie Macleod, the Scottish executive director of the British Hospitality Association, said the last revaluation unfairly left some of his members facing 400 per cent increases in their rates bill.
READ MORE: Barclay review backs major shake-up for business rates in Scotland
He said “Our industry is typified by large bricks and mortar assets and low margins and is at an unfair disadvantage compared to other sectors of the economy and digital businesses with huge turnovers and small physical footprints.
“It is disappointing that the review was not able to recommend at this time a new system of rates that would work for the hospitality industry, but we hope the Scottish Government will implement the recommendations which will work towards an entirely new and fairer system of business rates for our industry.”
David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said Barclay had “identified a path towards a better rates system”.
“Far more frequent revaluations and reducing from two years to one the period between the valuation and implementation of the new valuation roll is what we have been calling for,” he said.
“The Scottish Government’s decision last year to double the Large Business Supplement epitomised many of the problems with the rates system, and left 5000 Scottish retailers, and many other medium-sized and larger businesses, stumping up £12 million more in rates each year than competitors or counterparts down south. Barclay’s recommendation that this damaging Scotland-only surcharge be ended is most welcome.”
Meanwhile, one unexpected beneficiary of the Scottish Government’s emergency business rates relief programme for the hospitality industry, announced earlier in February, was Donald Trump.
Figures unveiled by The Guardian and the Ferret website reveal that the Trump Turnberry hotel on the Ayrshire coast, where suites cost up to £815 a night, had its property tax cut by £109,530 as a result of the measure.
That was a 13.5 per cent reduction in its normal annual business rates bill of £811,850.
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