The Government has confirmed the local finance settlement for the 2020/21 rate year and, following this, has confirmed to Uniform Business Rate multipliers that will apply from 1 April 2020. In England, these will be 49.9 pence for small businesses and 51.2 for larger businesses. ...Read More

The Treasury Select Committee has published its report into the impact of business rates on business. The report’s key finding is that “Business rates have become an increasingly significant proportion of the total taxes borne by business. In response to this report HM Treasury must explain whether it is deliberate government policy to rebalance business taxes in this way and, if so, what this policy decision is intended to achieve”. But the report is not only critical of the level of business rates in the UK, it also has criticism of the complexity of the system and of the new appeals process, known as “Check Challenge Appeal”. ...Read More

The Government has introduced an order that, if passed, would reduce, very slightly, the Uniform Business Rate multipliers for next rate year, 2020/21, in both England and Wales. The increase in these multipliers is normally based on the September inflation index figures. But, if the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (Non-Domestic Rating Multipliers) (England) Order 2019 is passed following the general election, that increase would be ameliorated, by the negligible amount of 0.1 pence! ...Read More

The September 2019 Consumer Prices Index (CPI) figure has been announced and shows a 1.78% increase over the previous year. This sets the upper limit by which next year's Uniform Business Rate (UBR) multiplier is expected to increase in England and Wales. ...Read More

The Government has introduced a Parliamentary Bill to give relief from non-domestic rates to public lavatories in England and Wales. The Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill gives effect to a promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in last year’s Budget. ...Read More

The Government has introduced a Parliamentary Bill to bring forward the date of the next rating revaluation in England from April 2022 to April 2021. The Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Bill also allows for revaluations every three years from 2021 onwards. It gives effect to a promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in last year’s Spring Statement to carry out more frequent revaluations. ...Read More

The Parliamentary Treasury Select Committee has launched an inquiry into business rates to scrutinise how Government policy has impacted business. The Committee will examine how business rates policy has changed, including business rates retention, alternatives to property-based taxes, such as the proposed digital services tax, and how changes to business rates could impact businesses.
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The government has now published regulations that will enable ratepayers in England who occupy contiguous properties, but which are treated separately for the purposes of business rates, to seek to have those assessments merged in the 2010 rating list. This is the reversal of the so-called "staircase tax". Those rating lists ended on 31st March 2017, but the new regulations will allow proposals to alter them to be made, in limited circumstances, between 17th December 2018 and 31st December 2019. ...Read More

The legislation to reverse the effects of the Supreme Court judgment in Woolway (VO) v Mazars LLP (2015) has become law. The Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Act provides that, where two or more hereditaments occupied or owned by the same person meet certain conditions as to contiguity, those hereditaments may be treated for the purposes of non-domestic rating as one hereditament. ...Read More

The Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Act 2018 received the Royal Assent on 1 November 2018. Its effect is to exempt from rates buildings which are used as plant nurseries, even if those buildings are not attached to agricultural land. ...Read More