Pre-Budget report: What's in it for small businesses?

Small business owners have awaited the chancellor's pre-Budget report with bated breath and now Mr Darling has spoken. The main proposals you'll want to take away from his last such report before a general election include:

• A six-month extension of the £1.3 billion Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme for small firms – that takes it to September 2010. First unveiled in March, the scheme means guaranteed 75% loans to enterprises with a turnover of £25 million or less.

• An indefinite extension of the "time to pay scheme", letting small business owners spread tax payments over a longer period. Allowing credit-starved firms that vital extra slice of liquidity, the scheme has seen over 150,000 companies defer £4 billion in tax payments since it was introduced a year ago.

• An increase in tax relief on empty properties: in a move that will help 850,000 small firms, companies which own empty buildings with a rateable value below £18,000 will be exempt from business tax.

• A deferral of the 1p increase in corporation tax for smaller companies until April 2011, leaving the 2010 tax rate unchanged for 850,000 firms.

• The creation of a £500 million Growth Capital Fund to invest specifically in small business, funded by contributions from banks and other financial institutions. More details on this one can be expected from the chancellor in the coming weeks and months.

Responding to the report, the Federation of Small Businesses welcomed most of the proposals but expressed disappointment that Alistair Darling did not focus more on incentives and assistance for small firms keen to take on more staff. A 0.5 per cent increase in employers' National Insurance Contributions will not encourage job creation within the small firm sector either, its representatives have concluded.