Latest Guidance on Business Support
In times like these, we cannot emphasise enough the importance of communication. We especially want to maintain effective communication with our clients, getting information to you that will help you and your business in these uncertain times.
We will always attempt to disseminate information and advice to clients as soon as more information is released from government. As we all know already from this situation, things are moving fast.
Already, announcements in the Budget last Wednesday have been superseded by the announcements made by the government yesterday afternoon. Whilst detail is limited at this stage, we feel it vitally important that our clients have the information available to be able to make informed, timely decisions.
The Chancellor made a number of announcements yesterday afternoon in recognition of the impact of Monday’s announcements.
These included:
- Interest-free business interruption loans – these were announced in last week’s Budget. However, these loans will be increased to £5m, up from the £1.2m announced last week. These loans are not yet operational and details have not yet been released, but the Chancellor announced yesterday that these should be operational shortly – see the British Business Bank’s website here for the latest information;
- Business rates holiday extended – A one year business rate holiday for those in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors was announced at the Budget, where property had a rateable value of £51,000 or less. The restriction on the rateable value of the property has now been scrapped, meaning all of businesses in that sector can claim the holiday i.e. a 12-month business rates holiday for all shops, hotels, pubs, theatres, music venues, restaurants and any other hospitality or leisure businesses;
- It was announced that cash grants of up to £25,000 will be available for those businesses with a property with a rateable value of less than £51,000;
- Cash grants of up to £10,000 will be available to business who are currently eligible to claim small business rate relief. This has increased from the £3,000 maximum announced in last week’s Budget;
- Finally, it was announced that a three-month mortgage holiday will be brought in for those in difficulty as a result of the situation.
The detail is obviously very limited at this stage, however, again, we feel that it is of huge value to advise our clients in real-time in a situation like this, providing you with the necessary information to enable you to make informed decisions.
We anticipate sending emails such as this much more regularly than we historically have done, again due to the rapidly changing situation. As soon as more information is available from the government on the above measures we will send more detail.
We are evaluating with clients where they envision a significant business cost, disruption or failure in the worst case, and are assisting in the development of action plans and strategies to mitigate the risks based on the information available. Our early experience of liaising with HMRC in relation to ‘time to pay’ requests is that they are being pragmatic and helpful. Please get in touch with your usual RRL contact if you require similar assistance and advice.