Four years into the current parliament, the Chancellor’s office has sent out a request for ideas for the Budget in March; well, what a great opportunity for tax experts to dust down their manifestos. With just over a year to go until the country goes to the polls, perhaps the UK, like the US, is suffering from a lame duck government, or maybe George Osborne is simply marshalling the brightest and the best in the country. Maybe all the critical reforms have been passed and there is time in hand – you can always debate the rationale for a five-year parliamentary cycle, but that’s for another day.

From a tax perspective, the best approach would be to hold fire and stop tinkering at the edges. The big measures were tapered across the parliament, such as the reduction in corporation tax with the move to a 20% rate, while small business tax rates were held. Of course, the escalating level of business rates is a constant bone of contention for bricks and mortar businesses, often strapped by huge rate bills every year, while the growing online businesses can operate from brown field warehouses or favourable offshore tax jurisdictions without inhibition.

There has been a raft of tax reliefs for business, many of which do seem to have failed to produce the results the government initially anticipated. Take the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), which offers tax relief to individual investors buying shares in small companies at a very early start-up stage; so far it has benefited only 1,100 companies.

In a recent survey by Baker Tilly, the majority of small to medium-sized business (SME) respondents said they had little awareness of the panoply of reliefs available – only 15% knew about R&D tax credits, despite the scheme being in operation for nearly 14 years, and recent moves to make this tax break more generous. Patent Box was another hidden gem, even less well known with only 4% aware of the tax breaks available under the scheme. In the case of the latter, critics say that it is primarily targeted at multinationals and the application process is so complicated that few small businesses apply. It is no surprise that the minister for skills and enterprise, Matthew Hancock, started the year by calling on accountants to help support small businesses drive growth and innovation. It would be a start to bonfire some of the relief red tape.

The next Budget is time for the Chancellor to provide tax breaks for SMEs, so often overlooked in the race to attract the big multinationals to the detriment of the majority of companies in the UK. We'll see on 19 March.