The Government has announced: 

• Support for business start-ups, and small growing businesses through a temporary increase in small business rate relief;
• Personalised Services for Start-ups and SMEs through Businesslink.gov.uk - By autumn 2011, a new personalised area for start ups on businesslink.gov.uk, which will provide easy access to enhanced guidance and tools to help businesses find the support they need when setting up. This will include an HMRC tax registration 'wizard' that enables registration for multiple taxes, online services and payment plans using a single interactive online form. Building on this, HMRC will provide an online facility, by the end of 2011, that provides SMEs with a single view of their current tax liabilities or repayments across the main taxes, and reduces the number of times they have to provide the same information (e.g. address updates) to HMRC. Find more detail on this and other measures to reduce burdens on businesses in HMRC's paper 'Delivering a new relationship with business'.
• Arrears of Tax – Business Payment Support Service - giving people streamlined access to request Time to Pay their tax - introduced at the 2008 Pre-Budget Report to support viable businesses experiencing temporary financial difficulty, will be extended. The service is available for all HMRC taxes, including VAT, Corporation Tax, Income Tax and NICs and PAYE. Since its launch 200,000 businesses, employing more than 1.4 million people have received more time to pay over £5.2 billion of tax.
• Doubling the Annual Investment Allowance to £100,000, allowing more capital expenditure to be offset against taxable profits;
• Doubling the value of capital gains that can be made under Entrepreneur's Relief, meaning gains under £2 million are subject to Capital Gains Tax at the lower rate of 10 per cent .
• Launching UK Finance for Growth, responsible for streamlining £4billion of existing finance products for small and medium sized businesses, ensuring one coherent portfolio of government-backed funds supporting businesses across the country.
• This will also include a new Growth Capital Fund, which will have a specific role in providing fast-growing companies with the private capital they need. Commercial banks have so far agreed to contribute over half of the £200m committed to this fund. It is anticipate it will eventually provide £500m of finance.
• Building on the recommendations of the Glover review, the proportion of central government contracts that go to SMEs will increase by 15%. It is anticipated that this could mean new business worth an extra £3 billion from central government and up to £15 billion across the wider public sector.
• Provision to speed up payments to businesses from government departments, so that up to 80 per cent of invoices will be paid within five days;
• Agreement with Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland to lend £94 billion to homebuyers and businesses over the next 12 months of which £41 billion will be lent to small businesses;
• A new small business credit adjudicator with powers of enforcement to ensure that small businesses have access to the finance they need and are fairly treated when applying for loans.The Adjudicator will work closely with an enhanced Business Link Financial Intermediary Service (FIS);
• The Financial Intermediary Service (FIS), accessed in each English region via Business Link acts as a bridge between the business and bank, encouraging further dialogue where the FIS judgement is that a bank's initial decision might merit re-consideration.  In response to the demand for the FIS the Government will be enhancing the service, increasing its profile and capacity.
• Better regulation measures from the new Parliament to help business by managing the flow of of new regulation, the cost of existing regulation, proposals from Europe, and enforcement. Further details from the Treasury.

For more details: Contact the Business Link Team on 0845 600 9966, or send your enquiry by email to: enquiry@businesslinksw.co.uk