Rachel Reeves – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rachel Reeves on 2016-04-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made a recent estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of exempting plant and machinery from the calculation of business rates.

Mr David Gauke

The government has carefully considered the case for exempting plant and machinery from business rates. However, there would also be fundamental operational challenges to delivering an exemption on account of the way in which the plant and machinery is embedded in the premises concerned, making its exclusion from the calculation more difficult.

The government will continue to incentivise investment through better targeted measures, such as the Annual Investment Allowance and Research and Development Tax credits, and through the reductions in the rate of Corporation tax that are in place and that have been announced.