Has there been a time when Business Rates have been front page news? For the past week, they have been headline news. Just today,

Daily Mail: Business Rate Rise Illegal
Telegraph: Tories face revolt over nightmare rise in rates

The UK's biggest employers' groups have united in condemning the changes to business rates, and supported by the 2 professional bodies. Why?

At every reval there will be winners and losers. But there is something more behind the headlines, Its about process, the government has sought to cut down on the number of these appeals for a number of years.

The issues are;

• The government are proposing the right to dismiss appeals against incorrect valuations that are deemed to be within the bounds of "reasonable professional judgement", or margin of error; an error of possibly 15%. Valuers were being successfully sued for negligence in the 1990s when their valuations were more than 10% astray!

• This means that ratepayers whose assessment is overvalued can have their appeals dismissed, and they will pay inflated business rates until the next revaluation.

• With the regulations concerning how check, challenge and appeal will work, and with 6 weeks to go before the new Rating List goes live, rating advisors are in the dark on how to advise clients, and how to lodge appeals.

• Whilst the transition scheme has been published, those with the greatest uplift aren’t seeing that uplift being sufficiently mitigated. Equally, those whose values have gone down aren’t receiving the benefit.

Helen Dickinson, director-general of the British Retail Consortium, told the BBC that the tax was

"no longer fit for purpose in the 21st Century".

Andrew Hetherton, past President of the RSA and Head of Business Rates at GL Hearn tweeted

“Reform of business rates is appropriate but not as proposed – its not fit for purpose #businessrates"

If you advise or manage business rates, then you cannot afford to miss the National Rating day!

It’s the unrivalled gathering of all those involved in business rates in the UK.

See more detailshere