The Labour party says they are 'championing an enterprise economy'. Let's find out how they're going to do this, and what small businesses can expect.
Their manifesto reconfirmed measures aimed at helping SMEs announced in the budget. These include:
• Continuing the Time to Pay scheme for deferral of tax and National Insurance Contributions.
• Offering a one-year holiday on business rates for small businesses
• Widening support for training and apprenticeships.
• Doubling the Entrepreneurs Relief lifetime limit to £2m.
• Establishing a Small Business Credit Adjudicator, with statutory powers ensuring that small businesses are not turned down unfairly when applying for finance from banks.
But many of the SME proposals in this section of the manifesto are generalisations.
• Keep business taxation 'competitive' while increasing capital allowances to encourage investment.
• Simplify regulation and avoid unnecessary red tape. Reduce the costs of regulation by more than £6bn by 2015.
• Create a new generation of entrepreneurs by ensuring that those studying vocational skills can also learn how to run a business.
Labour do not plan to extend VAT to food, children’s clothes, books, newspapers and public transport fares. But they do not guarantee that there will be no rise in VAT. Many SMEs fear an increase in VAT, which could affect consumer spending.
Labour's proposed 1p rise in NICs has grabbed the headlines, but they're also committed to increasing the minimum wage every year to 2015. According to the ACS, the association of convenience shops, this could result in cost-saving measures with retailers cutting jobs, staff hours and investment.
