Businesses will need to apply for extended Scottish Government Rates Relief. Bounce back loan borrowers can delay repayments by extra six months. Sign the UK Government Petition to extend VAT at 5% for hospitality until at least March 2022.
Businesses will need to apply for extended Scottish Government Rates Relief.
The rates relief announced by the Scottish Government Finance Minister on the 28th of January for sectors worst hit by pandemic will not be applied automatically. Retail, hospitality, leisure and aviation businesses will receive 100% non-domestic rates relief extended for at least an additional three months.
These sectoral businesses will have to apply for this rates relief and the Government is currently working with councils to establish a very simple application form which should go live mid-March once the regulations are laid and the final details are confirmed (including any ability to offer a longer relief following the Chancellor’s Budget on the 3rd of March). The SLTA will provide further updates on this situation and will advise of the live date as soon as confirmed.
Bounce back loan borrowers can delay repayments by extra six months.
Businesses that took out government-backed Bounce Back Loans will now have greater flexibility to repay their loans.
The UK government has announced the Chancellor’s Pay as You Grow repayment flexibilities which now includes the option to delay all repayments for a further six months, meaning businesses can choose to make no payments on their loans until 18 months after they originally took them out.
The option to pause repayments will now be available to all from their first repayment, rather than after six repayments have been made.
Pay as You Grow will also enable borrowers to extend the length of their loans from six to ten years (reducing monthly repayments by almost half) and make interest-only payments for six months, in order to tailor their repayment schedule to suit their individual circumstances.
For more details, please click here.
Sign the UK Government Petition to extend VAT at 5% for hospitality until at least March 2022.
Maintaining VAT at 5% for the sector is an essential lifeline for the Hospitality Industry’s if the industry hopes to have any meaningful recovery. VAT at 5% was the single biggest recovery mechanism from the last two lockdowns and helped re-build businesses. VAT at 5% will help save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Industry where without this essential recovery mechanism many will now not re-open.
To sign the petition click here.