Andy Burnham is being urged to support independent shops through a root-and-branch overhaul of hated business rates.
Shopkeepers want the incoming government to adopt a new ‘hybrid’ model involving a 2 per cent levy on online sales and a 37 per cent cut for bricks-and-mortar firms.
The British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) branded the current rates system ‘the most unfair tax in Britain’.
Writing for the Daily Mail online, BIRA chief executive Andrew Goodacre said the levy punishes shops on the High Street ‘simply for existing’.
He said ‘the time for tinkering’ was over and demanded full-blown reform.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have faced
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