Building Britain for Generations: A Policy Agenda for Family Businesses
Stability and Forward Planning Create a clear Tax Roadmap to give businesses confidence about the direction of travel on tax issues. This Roadmap must include business and ownership taxes including Corporation Tax, Capital Allowances, Business Rates, Inheritance Tax and Dividend Tax. This clarity would allow firms to plan multi-year investments, succession arrangements and expansion strategies without the fear of sudden, damaging surprises. Summary of Recommendations F Fair Taxation system
Business Property Relief Reintroduce full Business Property Relief and Agricultural Property Relief to support continuity in family ownership. Reinstatement of full 100% Business Property relief, with no upper thresholds, could provide a tax surplus to the Treasury by unlocking capital investment and creating, and sustaining, more jobs. In the short term, Government should commission a full independent review of the policy, assessing the behavioural impacts on family businesses. This would enable Government to understand the impact and reconsider the policy.
Incentivising Management to Think Long Term Introduce a scheme similar to Enterprise Management Incentive/ Company Share Option Plan for family businesses – which allows efficient and simple equity incentivisation to help motivate key staff.
Business Rates Move to a progressive approach for calculating Business Rates. Under a new system each portion of the rates bill would be charged at the rate applicable to that specific band, rather than applying a single percentage to the entire amount. This is how Income Tax and Stamp Duty Land Tax work, enabling revenue and fairness to be achieved together. In the long term, the Business Rates system needs a fundamental overhaul to make it genuinely fair for family‑run, bricks-and- mortar businesses which act as the long‑term custodians of our high streets.
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