VOA under fire on dock rates
THE Valuation Office Agency (VOA) has come under fire from the Treasury for its “completely unacceptable” enforcement of backdated business rates on UK port occupiers.
At a heated parliamentary committee meeting in London last week the VOA was asked to explain why some port operators had been landed with 500% increases in business rates as a result of the controversial system shake-up.
Andrew Hudson, chief executive of the VOA, the agency responsible for ongoing rates investigation, told the hearing that businesses involved did have the right to appeal and those firms that had already paid the rates through operators “needed to take that up with the operators.”
Michael Fallon, Treasury sub-committee chairman, pointedly questioned the fairness of backdating the rates to 2005.
The row began over the retrospective collection of National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) which resulted in businesses in Liverpool being presented with unexpected bills, including payments for this year and back payments as far back as 2005.
Operators in the UK’s other 55 statutory ports are now bracing themselves for similar backdated demands totalling millions of pounds, and 65 other commercial ports face re-assessment.
Leaders of businesses based in British ports estimate that, unless the ratings crisis is tackled by the Government, the industry faces the potential loss of business worth up to £20bn and job losses of more than 150,000.
The matter will now be taken up at ministerial level.
