Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the Government has “loaded up” employers with rises in business rates and national insurance.
In her spring statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves made no change to a pencilled jump in how much firms will pay in business rates.
The tax, which applies for businesses operating out of physical premises, was previously cushioned during the pandemic – but a 75% relief fell to 40% this month.
Mr Stride said the rise in business rates was putting employers under “pressure” and meant “people having lower wages at a very tough time when this government has put inflation up”.
Speaking on a visit to businesses in south London on Thursday, Mr Stride told the PA news agency: “Labour said during the general election they wouldn’t be putting all these taxes up, but they’ve loaded up employers and businesses with national insurance increases and business rates.”
The Government has said it will reform the current business rates system, and last month said it will publish an interim report on this during the summer.
But no details of the proposed changes are set to be announced until the next autumn budget later this year.
Asked what the Conservatives would do differently, Mr Stride added: “We’d have taken different decisions around tax and borrowing and spending, we would also focus much more on productivity.
“When this government came in, they spent vast amounts of money on giving no strings attached increases to train drivers, junior doctors and so on.”
Mr Stride was accompanied on the visit to Purley by shadow home secretary and Croydon South MP Chris Philp.
Mr Philp said that Labour had imposed the “biggest tax increases for a generation”.
He told PA: “People are really, really worried.
“They’ve seen their national insurance bills going up, they’ve seen their business rates going up, they’ve seen their energy bills going up, all because of the terrible choices this Labour government has made.
“People are going to lose their jobs as a result of this and some businesses are actually faced with closure because they just can’t afford to pay these swingeing tax increases that Labour have forced through.”
Speaking in his constituency, Mr Philp added: “What makes people really angry is that Labour lied about this before the election, Keir Starmer said there weren’t going to be any tax increases, and in fact what he’s done is impose the biggest tax increases for a generation.
“And for smaller companies, in particular, they just can’t afford it.”
During their visit, the Conservative MPs met garage owner John Ives-Brown, who said his business rate payment had nearly tripled this year.
Mr Ives-Brown, owner of JD Motors in Purley, said the increase was going to “push up the price of jobs”.
He added: “Lots of people at the moment are a bit short on money doing their repairs. It’s just the cost of living, everything’s going up.
“It makes it more difficult – you’ve got less profit, it means we’ve got to work longer hours and do more jobs just to stay where we work.”
Analysis from global tax firm Ryan showed that the overall business rates bill for firms in England will rise by £1.5 billion for the year as a result of the change.
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