Are you missing out on a reduction in your
business rates? The small business rate relief scheme (SBRR) can reduce
your business rates by over 50% if your building has a rateable value
of less than £5,000. The SBRR provides smaller discounts in business
rates for properties with rateable values of up to £15,000, or £21,500
in Greater London.

Business rates are collected by local authorities, but the amount
due is set nationally using a standard multiplier for all commercial
properties. This multiplier is 46.2p in England for the tax year
2008/09. Scotland and Wales set separate multipliers and have slightly
different versions of the SBRR that give different reductions. The
Northern Irish Assembly still operates the pre-1990 old rates system
for all domestic and business properties.

SBRR applies a lower multiplier (45.8p for 2008/09) to businesses that qualify and gives additional reductions as shown below:

Example

A business using a property with rateable value of £6,000 would pay
£2,772 in business rates at the full rate of 46.2p for 2008/09. If it
successfully applied to use the SBRR it would pay £6,000 x 45.8p =
£2,748 x 60% = £1,648.80. That's a reduction of 41% from the original bill of £2,772.

The catch is you have to apply to use the SBRR from the billing
authority that collects your business rates. You can now make one
application to cover all the years from 2007/08 to 2009/10, and reclaim
any excessive business rates paid for those earlier years. Contact your
billing authority for their claim form. Each authority has a different
form, but some authorities have not updated their information to show
the extended deadline for claims, which is now 30 September 2010 for the current valuation period.