Business rates get blanked by the Budget

BUSINESS rates were conspicuously absent from yesterday’s Budget statement.

The Chancellor did announce a three-year extension to enterprise zones which give tenants rates relief, but there was no suggestion of a major change, such as an earlier revaluation.

In 2012 the Government pushed the 2015 rates revaluation back to 2017, a move which many agents say has benefited London at the expense of the regions. A 2015 revaluation would link rates bills to current property prices instead of 2008’s pre-recessionary values which are used at present.

Earlier this month, a report from the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills committee said that the property tax is no longer fit for purpose, and called for it to be reviewed.

Robert Brown, head of rating services at surveyor Sanderson Weatherall, said: “Eighteen months ago the coalition government controversially postponed the intended 2015 rating revaluation planned from a time when it was most needed, until 2017. The result has been that Northern ratepayers continue to heavily subsidise London and the south of England, where media reports now regularly report a rapid economic recovery. The cranes have returned to the London skyline, but one must ask what help is there for the North?

“Why the Government continues to prevaricate on business rates when urgent steps are both needed and could easily be taken is a modern mystery. We have been lobbying for some time for the postponed revaluation to be brought forward to 2016, a move which the Valuation Office Agency could readily cope with, coupled with a commitment to future revaluations occurring more often, every three years.”

In his Autumn Statement the Chancellor introduced a 2% cap on this year’s rates increase, instead of the 3.2% inflationary rise; extended small business rates relief for another year; introduced a £1,000 rates discount for businesses with a rateable value of less than £50,000; and introduced a 50% relief for businesses that re-occupy retail premises that have been empty for more than a year.

Richard Wackett, national head of Business Rates at Lambert Smith Hampton, said: “The Chancellor announced that this is a budget for ‘makers, doers and savers’, but what about commercial property landlords, developers and occupiers? A combination of full empty rate charges and the failure to revalue has unfairly affected those sectors of the economy that most need help.”