Non-domestic rates (NDR) reliefs provide financial support to specific ratepayers, including small businesses and charities, and in recent years the Welsh Government has explored options for reforming them. Therefore, the Welsh Government commissioned our team to carry out a review of NDR reliefs in Wales to determine a set of key principles that can guide future changes.

We carried out three strands of work to establish the principles for assessing NDR reliefs, assess the practical implementation of reliefs and their administration by local authorities, and explore the perceptions of reliefs among ratepayers and representative bodies. As part of this, we conducted a desk-based review, interviews with experts in taxation, workshops with local authority representatives, a survey of ratepayers, and focus groups and interviews with ratepayers and representative bodies.

Our team delivered a bilingual report outlining the findings across the three strands. The report and its findings will be used to support the Welsh Government in guiding future changes to NDR reliefs.

➥ You can explore our work in more detail here.