Lib Dems would cut taxes for businesses by 20% in Wiltshire

The Liberal Democrats have published a comprehensive blueprint for replacing the business rates system, cutting taxes for businesses by around 20% in Wiltshire.

The report - Taxing Land, Not Investment - calls for the abolition of the business rates system and its replacement with a tax on land values, the Commercial Landowner Levy (CLL).

The levy would remove buildings and machinery from calculations and tax only the land value of commercial sites, boosting investment and cutting taxes for businesses.

Liberal Democrat members will debate and vote on the proposals at the party's Autumn Conference in Brighton next month.

Vince Cable says: "Business rates were a badly designed policy to begin with and have become an unacceptable drag on our economy. They are a tax on productive investment at a time of chronically weak productivity growth, and a burden on high streets struggling to adapt to the rise of online retail.

"Many of the areas around the country that voted for Brexit feel they have been left behind. In place of policies the Brexiters offer only rhetoric. Great swathes of the country demand better, and this policy offers change to the manufacturing industry and the small towns passed over by economic growth."

The full report can be found here.

Key recommendations from the report include:

• Business rates should be abolished and replaced by a Commercial Landowner Levy based on the value of commercial land only
• The levy should be paid by owners rather than tenants
• Non-residential stamp duty should be scrapped to improve the efficiency of the commercial property market
• Commercial land should be taxed regardless of whether the buildings above it are occupied; the tax should also apply to unused and derelict commercial land

The report also finds:

• The manufacturing and technology sectors would be the most significant beneficiaries of the CLL, receiving tax cuts of over 20%. Retailers in struggling areas would also receive a boost.
• The CLL would represent a tax cut initially, but is likely to be at least revenue-neutral in the long-term. Redistribution between local authorities would be adjusted to ensure no change in local funding.

By taxing landowners rather than businesses, half a million SMEs would be spared the bureaucratic burden of property taxation. With far fewer plots of land than individual businesses, the CLL would save councils time and money.