Business Rates Avoidance
and Evasion Consultation: Summary of Responses
Detail of outcome
The Summary of Responses to the Business Rates Avoidance and
Evasion Consultation sets out the views expressed to the
government during the consultation and outlines reforms to combat
abuse of the system.
The government is extending the Empty Property Relief “reset
period”, from six weeks to three months (13 weeks) from 1 April
2024 in England. This will reduce the financial incentive to
avoid business rates on empty properties through “box shifting”.
The government is also announcing a consultation on a “General
Anti-Avoidance Rule” for business rates in England, and
committing to improved communications for ratepayers to help
combat “rogue” business rates agents.
Original consultation Summary
The government is consulting on the scope and scale of avoidance,
evasion and poor rating agent behaviour in the business rates
system, and potential methods to tackle it.
This consultation ran from
11am on 6 July 2023 to 11am on 28 September 2023
Consultation description
At Spring Budget 2023 the government announced a consultation to
explore the causes of, and potential measures to combat,
avoidance, evasion, and poor rating agent behaviour within the
business rates system, to protect essential funding for local
services.
The purpose of this consultation is to:
- consult on specific measures to reform Empty Property Relief,
to address known avoidance schemes
- gather evidence on wider avoidance and evasion practises
within the business rates system, and seek views on whether
billing authorities have sufficient powers and information to
combat them
- gather evidence on “rogue” rating agent behaviour and seek
views on how the government could address any problems
Documents
Business Rates Avoidance
and Evasion: Consultation
