The Scottish Fiscal Commission forecast that business rates income would be £2.75 billion this year, but will rise to £3.4bn in 2023/24. The £674m difference is a 25% increase to the overall rates bill for the coming year.

Government officials have urged that the change was partly due to the business rates appeals cycle, with businesses beginning to pay more as their appeals are settled and rejected following the 2017 revaluation.

Scottish ministers have also insisted that Scotland had the fairest business rate system in the UK.

However, various business organisation bodies have called for action to address the rise.

The British Retail Consortium has said that the overall tax burden must come down and that fiscal neutrality is unsustainable. The BRC issued a joint letter to the Chancellor on Wednesday calling for four principles to be incorporated into the forthcoming review of business rates to ensure that it results in real change.

The letter was cosigned by other business groups such as the Confederation of British Industry, the British Property Federation and the Association of Convenience Stores.

David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium, said that the overall burden of business rates remains onerous. He said: “The business rate poundage is already at a 20-year-high, and these figures show the burden is set to increase further.”

Mr Lonsdale has called for a “concerted plan to lower the poundage rate to a more sustainable level”.

Graham Owenson, head of local government finance at the Scottish Government, commented on the SFC figures. He said: “These are Scottish Fiscal Commission estimates based on CPI inflation. You also need to take into account where we are in the appeals cycle, when appeals are being settled.

“In the earlier years, when we’re getting a lot of appeals settled, income will be low. In the later years, when the appeals have been settled, income will be higher. It’s to do with where you are in the appeals cycle.”

Finance secretary Kate Forbes also urged that Scottish firms will be paying a lower headline poundage than the rest of the UK and 95% of properties will be paying less than they would elsewhere in the UK, The Herald reports.

She said: “We still continue to have the most generous rates relief anywhere in the UK. So I think in terms of what businesses will see, they will see the positive impact of the most recent non-domestic rates bill in terms of the changes that have been made to the appeals system, and they will also be paying a lower headline poundage than they would anywhere else in the UK.

“So I think we can continue to say Scotland provides the most competitive rates regime to business anywhere in the UK.”