Source: Local Economies (UK)
Author: Hanna Ellington
Date published: 2025-10-13
[original article can be accessed via hyperlink at the end]
The UK live music industry is urging the government to exempt music venues from a tax hike in the forthcoming national Budget.
The Labour government is poised to introduce a new business rates multiplier for large retail, hospitality and leisure (RHL) properties with a rateable value of over £500k across all sectors, taking effect next April.
In a letter signed by LIVE, National Arenas Association (NAA), Music Venue Trust (MVT), British Association of Concert Halls (BACH), and signed by 14 arenas and venues, including London’s The O2 and Manchester’s Co-op Live, industry leaders say the increased taxes will unnecessarily penalise venues.
“Arenas and music venues already operate on very tight margins and many simply do not have the ability to absorb additional tax pressures,” says Jon Collins, CEO of trade body LIVE. “Without an exemption, this tax rise will unfairly penalise arenas and live music venues – holding back growth, increasing costs for consumers, and putting local jobs at risks.”
The policy is intended to target distribution warehouse operations to lower multipliers for RHL businesses below the £500k threshold, to give “long-term certainty and support to the high street,” per the 2024 Autumn Budget.
“This approach ignores the profound economic, social, and cultural benefits our venues deliver to communities across the UK”
Sector leaders argue that live music events sustain the high street by driving ancilliary spending, in addition to generating tax receipts for government from VAT and other tolls.
“This approach ignores the profound economic, social, and cultural benefits our venues deliver to communities across the UK,” the signatories wrote in a letter to HM Treasury exchequer secretary Dan Tomlinson MP, urging a consultation be held ahead of the 2025 Autumn Budget.
With last year’s Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £40 billion (€48bn) of tax rises, business rates relief cut from 75% to 40% from 1 April 2025, and an overhaul of the system in 2026.
“The immediate impact is to create a demand for £7 million in additional premises taxes from a sector that, in 2023, returned an entire gross profit across all 830 such venues in the UK of just £2.9 million,” said MVT’s Mark Davyd following the announcement. “Over 350 grassroots music venues are now placed at immediate risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events.”
The 2025 Autumn Budget will be delivered on 26 November.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
The post UK music industry asks government to abandon tax hike appeared first on IQ Magazine.
View original article at:
https://www.iqmagazine.com/2025/10/uk-music-industry-asks-government-to-abandon-tax-hike/