Should business rates be replaced with a tax on sales, including online sales?
Business rates are a property tax on non-domestic premises based on rateable value and multipliers that vary by property type and size. From April 2026, retail, hospitality and leisure properties under £500,000 rateable value benefit from permanently lower multipliers (38.2p or 43p), while those over £500,000 face a higher 50.8p multiplier; the system raises around £26 billion annually and is widely blamed for disadvantaging high street retailers against online competitors. Recent calls, including from the IPPR on 8 October 2026, propose an online sales tax to raise £1.5 billion and fund further rate reductions for physical shops, amid ongoing high street vacancy rates of around 14% and pressure ahead of the 28 October Budget.
29 Opinions
Adding a sales tax on top of a value added tax is absurd.
Yes but to go further - - Business rates should be abolished. - Anyone still on the high street should be given charitable status, including Wetherspoons and Boots. - Councils should be properly funded - this is just a proposal to pick Amazon's pocket.
Rates are a blunt instrument. It’s a tax on occupation but if empty, Councils still charge full rate after a v small grace period. It becomes a very regressive & confiscatory wealth tax & Councils aggressively collect it. To ignore reform because it upsets Local Authority funding is a poor excuse. Should be a Digital tax & Rates only get levied on a sliding scale if profits are actually made by companies. State should not be able to confiscate property as owner has no tenant.
We already have a tax on sales. It's called VAT and it's 20%. Who writes these questions?
A tax on sales would penalise businesses with high turnover but low margins, potentially increasing prices for consumers. It would also tax online sales without addressing the underlying imbalance between property-intensive and digital businesses. Business rates need reform to reflect modern trading, but replacing them with a sales tax risks creating new distortions rather than a fairer, more stable tax system.
More taxes are not the answer. The size of government should be reduced so taxes on anything are unnecessary. Taxation is simply theft.
They should be replaced but not by a tax on sales. I would propose an increase in corporation tax instead.
Councils already have a shortage of funding, this would reduce it further meaning more cuts to local services..
This would make councils more accountable for building the wealth of its high street, instead of just charging a specified rate on a property. It would also level the playing field somewhat against online retailers.
We already have a tax on sales, it's called Value Added Tax.