Business rate appeal delay costly for SMEs
Oct 18 2011
Delays in processing business rate appeals are costing English businesses £300 million per year
Delays in processing business rate appeals are costing English businesses £300 million per year, according a business rates specialist.
CVS has uncovered a backlog of more than 328,000 business rate appeals at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), the agency in charge of calculating business rates and council tax in England and Wales. A third of these appeals date back to 2005.
The result is that tens of thousands of business ratepayers have paid too much and, to compound the problem, they are unable to retrieve the money owed to them as a result of the inefficient appeals process.
At the VOA’s current rate of performance, it will take a further 2.4 years to clear the backlog of 2010 appeals. Thousands of appeals against the 2005 ratings list are also still outstanding and, to compound the problem, the VOA is holding over appeals from 2005 to consider alongside those from 2010 creating an additional and extended backlog.
This inability to resolve appeals in a timely fashion and return money to businesses that have over-paid is fast becoming a business critical issue according to CVS, and is preventing SME businesses from contributing to a private sector recovery.
Don Baker, National Head of Rating at CVS says, ‘The VOA’s speed of processing business rate appeals is unacceptably slow. At the moment, businesses need all the revenue they can get and the VOA’s inefficiency is penalising companies unfairly and preventing those companies from recovering money that is rightfully theirs.
‘This is weakening the financial health of a large number of SMEs across the country and damaging businesses’ ability to invest and grow. Urgent action is needed to clear the backlog and to give SMEs a fighting chance of leading the recovery.’
New procedures introduced in January 2011 are to blame for the appeals backlog. CVS would like to see greater clarity from the VOA on these new procedures, a reduction of bureaucracy in the system and improved compliance with the appeal procedures across the country. Together, these changes would help to speed up the appeals process, says the firm.
Comment by u k
Friday 28th October 2011CVS's problem is that they have deluged the VO with appeals without THEM having enough staff to deal with them. Each appeal is allocated a discussion period. But in the majoirity of cases CVS will not discuss. They make every excuse to postpone dealing with an appeal. CVS and understaffed rating agents like them are the problem. If they will not discuss appeals with the VO, how can we possible resolve them. This article would be more balanced had the VO been given the opportunity to comment.
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