SNP plans to cut rates for small businesses. Check it out:
(The Herald Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) THE SNP yesterday announced plans to cut rates for small businesses, and the party's enterprise spokesman, Jim Mather, told parliament the small business bonus scheme would make the Scottish economy more competitive.
He told MSPs that red tape would also be reduced, with small businesses only having to apply for this on a fiveyearly basis to coincide with revaluation.
"Scotland can grow, Scotland can move forward. People are coming to that conclusion right, left and centre, " he said.
Mather added that Scottish Enterprise chairman John Ward had recently claimed that a 3.5-per cent rate of growth is required. He said: "That requires radical change.
"Our proposals are putting that radical change in place and we are persuading more and more people that we can end an era of relative decline which has lasted all my business lifetime.
"We are entering an era where we can have perpetual improvement and the personal and national economic cakes get progressively bigger."
He said this was in line with the success which Ireland has seen in recent years. "We can match what Ireland's doing because we are starting from a better place. We've got better infrastructure. We've got better and more universities, we've got stronger industry sectors and we've got fantastic natural resources, " he said.
A key objective for an SNP administration would be to become one of the top 15 most competitive countries in the western world and matching the 4-per cent per annum growth of small European nations, he added.
The SNP claims that its new small business bonus scheme will abolish business rates for 120,000 companies across the country.
Under the plans, business rates for firms with a rateable value of GBP8000 a year or less would be abolished.
Businesses with a rateable value of GBP8000 to GBP10,000 a year would get rates relief of 50-per cent while those with a rateable value of between GBP10,000 and GBP15,000 would have their bills cut by 25-per cent.
Mather also said that reducing the application for the scheme to once every five years, it would save the sector GBP10m.
Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson told the chamber that 98-per cent of Scottish firms fell into the small business category.
He claimed that the Scottish economy has performed well, with a GDP growth over the year to the first quarter of 2006 of 1.9-per cent.
He said: "This is above our long-term annual average and our most recent quarterly growth rate of 0.5-per cent is the strongest first-quarter performance for the Scottish economy since 2001.
"The Scottish labour market continues to perform exceptionally well, with over 160,000 Scots having entered employment since the creation of the Scottish parliament.
"Employment levels are at their highest since quarterly records began."
The minister added that 40-per cent of all private sector jobs were in small businesses.
Scottish corporate statistics show that the number of small businesses has risen from 226,510 in 1999 to 264,660 in 2004.
Total employment in small businesses is now 759,500.
He said: "That's real progress. That's real people in real, growing small businesses here in Scotland.
"Those businesses have an encouraging turnover of some GBP52bn here in Scotland and those are all positive aspects of our support for Scottish businesses."
Since 2003, about 70-per cent of nondomestic subjects in Scotland have benefited from a rates reduction of up to 50-per cent, the minister added, through the small business rates relief scheme.
"I believe that we have devised a scheme which significantly assists those small businesses who need help with paying their rates bill, " he said.
Copyright 2006 Newsquest Media Group Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire.
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