The bosses of some of Britain’s biggest retail chains, including Tesco, Morrisons, Asda and Waterstones, have joined forces to call for an overhaul of business rates to help them to compete with online giants such as Amazon.
Retailers pay £8 billion a year in business rates, more than any other sector and a quarter of the total rates bill. They argue that rates have grown disproportionately to other taxes and fail to reflect the shift to online shopping or falls in shop rent values.
The bosses of 17 retailers, including Ken Murphy of Tesco, Thierry Garnier of Kingfisher, which owns B&Q, David Potts of Morrisons, Roger Burnley of Asda, Peter Pritchard of Pets at Home and James Daunt of Waterstones, said in a letter
