Business rate deferral and tax deadline calendar

The Treasury has announced that, in response to the economic slowdown, businesses will be able to defer (to 2010-11 and 2011-12 equally ) 60% of the increase in their 2009-10 business rates bills.

For those applying for deferral, the 5% Uniform Business Rate rise for 2009-10 will be cut to 2% with the deferred 3% paid off over the two years 2010-11 and 2011-12. Further information on the deferral is available from this DCLG factsheet (pdf file).

At the same time, a tax deadline calendar for 2009/10 has been produced by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) especially for small businesses.

Mike Purvis, HMRC's assistant director for small and medium enterprises said, ‘A number of smaller business customers have told us it would be useful to bring together all the key fixed and variable dates in one place. The new tax deadline calendar sets these out.

‘Most will know these dates already but we hope that the calendar will be a useful reminder.’

A pdf version of the calendar can be downloaded from the BusinessLink website here.