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In June 1998, we published a Digest giving details of the Valuation Office's search for rental information to enable it to carry out the general revaluation of non-domestic property for rating purposes, due with effect from 1 April 2000.
At that time the Government had not decided whether to impose transitional relief to limit the impact of large increases or decreases in assessments, nor had it decided on the level of the nationally fixed uniform business rate.
On 25 November 1999 the Department of the Environment Regions and Transport published its proposals for the transitional scheme in England. There will, as in the two previous revaluations in 1990 and 1995, be two bands. One for properties with a small assessment, defined as under £18,000 rateable value in London and £12,000 rateable value elsewhere in England and one for all other properties.
The limits for increases and decreases, after the addition for inflation over the previous year, will be as follows:-
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INCREASES |
DECREASES |
| Year |
Lower Band |
Higher Band |
Lower Band |
Higher Band |
| 2000/01 |
+5% |
+12.5% |
-5% |
-2.5% |
| 2001/02 |
+7.5% |
+15% |
-5% |
-2.5% |
| 2002/03 |
+7.5% |
+17.5% |
-10% |
-5% |
| 2003/04 |
+7.5% |
+17.5% |
-12.5% |
-7.5% |
| 2004/05 |
+7.5% |
+17.5% |
-25% |
-15% |
In addition, the business rate for England has been provisionally set at 41.6 pence in the pound for the year 2000/01. This is a fall of approximately 15 % from the current level of 48.9 pence. Transitional schemes and the rates for Wales and Scotland have yet to be announced. The earlier proposal to allow local authorities the opportunity of levying an additional local rate poundage appears, at this stage at least, to have been abandoned.
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