Business Rate Retention

Just to show how daft the proposal is.



Just to illustrate the differences, we get £0.7bn as opposed to Westminster's £1.8bn, and they have a much lower population to look after. 

 

 

BUSINESS RATES SWINDLE - TELEGRAPH CALLS FOR YORKSHIRE TO BE OVERCHARGED

BUSINESS RATES SWINDLE

YORKSHIRE PAYING 10% too much

LONDON PAYING 10% too Little

A previous blog explained how for the past five years, businesses in Yorkshire have been overpaying business rates to subsidise the South.

Now that the revaluation has been done and it has revealed the overpayment caused by the Tory cancelation of the revaluation, the Telegraph in an editorial have called for the changes to be delayed once more. According to a statement on the news today, nationally 75% of valuations have decreased (remember current valuations were done just before the slump when rents were at their highest) and 25% have increased. But we are seeing an assault in the media calling claiming that businesses are facing massive increases, much of it untrue.

Given the conservatives love of the South and hatred of the North, do not be surprised if another swindle is concocted to hit our businesses once more.

BUSINESS RATE BILL CHANGES - after revaluation.

Winners and Losers in the Rating Game...

It might not have registered with you that all valuations for business rates in the UK are changing this year. Obviously some go up and some go down, but what do they mean in regional terms.

The changes are as shown in this table.

On the face of it, it seems good news for Yorkshire, and it is, but what else can we understand from the numbers.

What it is saying is that because the Conservatives delayed the re-valuation, for the past few years, businesses in Yorkshire have been paying 10% too much in Rates whilst businesses in London are paying 11% too little. It doesn't stop there as the changes, in Yorkshire a reduction, are not going to be implemented straight away, they are to be phased in.

It also means that Local Authorities in Yorkshire are to get the largest part of their income (under the new funding proposals) cut by 10%, this is on top of the cuts already made, whereas the South East will only be cut by 2% and London will get a 11% rise in income.

This shifting of resources to the South started as soon as the Lib/Dems and Conservatives took charge of the finances and is being accelerated now the Conservatives control the purse strings. Local Conservatives continue in denial and refuse to condemn the blatant attack on our services.

WAKE UP FOLKS 

Business Rate Retention

I realise I may be a lone voice in being entirely cynical over retention of business rates but:

 

Any system that is dependent on redistribution of business rates is not a retention of business rates.

 

Talk about the advantages of retaining the benefit of growth in the business rate pool, this ignores the difference in growth between North and South. Rateable values in the south not only start from a point where they have much higher values for comparable properties but the rate of growth has been, and I see no reason for it to change, greater than in the North. So retaining the benefit of growth means that the South will get richer and richer and the surpluses will not be available for redistribution. We already see the situation where Westminster has one of the lowest community charge rates in the country, we can predict with retention of business rates they will be able to pay a premium rather than charge a community levy.

 

At the very best we will be dependent on a secretary of state (remember Eric) being fair in redistribution from mostly southern authorities to mostly northern authorities.

 

Anything else will the end of local government in large parts of the country.