Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Retail bosses will call for the Treasury to increase corporation tax in order to cut business rates by £6bn.
A sub-committee of the Retail Sector Council is reportedly calling for the Treasury to raise corporation tax by 2 per cent to 23 per cent to raise around £6bn a year by 2022/23. Other proposals cover VAT reform and tax and property cost transparency.
The group will make the recommendations in a document to be shared across Whitehall in the coming weeks, Sky News has reported.
According to Sky News, the extra revenue would be used to reduce the business rate multiplier to around 40p in the pound.
Corporation tax is currently 19 per cent for UK companies. During the election, Labour proposed increasing the rate to 26 per cent (with a lower 21 per cent rate for businesses with annual turnover of under £300,000).
High street decline
The Retail Sector Council was set up in 2018 to help address the decline of the UK high street and increase the productivity of the retail sector.
It is currently co-chaired by small business minister Kelly Tolhurst and former Co-op chief executive Richard Pennycook, who is also the chair of department store chain