Question reference: S6W-18051
- Date lodged: 17 May 2023
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Current status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 30 May 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether entitlement to the Small Business Bonus Scheme should be granted automatically to eligible ratepayers, as opposed to it having to be claimed for.
Answer
Public bodies have a duty to manage public finances appropriately and this includes ensuring that procedures for administering relief are suitably robust.
Most reliefs generally require an application to be made to the local authority except for universally available reliefs. This is because applications help local authorities determine whether a property is eligible for a particular relief.
The Small Business Bonus Scheme relief is available for properties where the rateable value of the property does not exceed £20,000 and where the rateable value of all of the ratepayer’s properties does not exceed £35,000 and where the property is not used for an excluded purpose.
An application for Small Business Bonus Scheme relief therefore requires ratepayers to declare information regarding their non-domestic properties in Scotland, allowing local authorities to determine whether the eligibility criteria for the relief is met.