Help for businesses hit by ‘staircase’ tax (E)

03/01/2018

Up to 1,000 businesses operating in adjoining rooms accessed from a common corridor or staircase need no longer fear a so-called ‘staircase tax’ arising from separate rate bills for each room, under draft legislation that will give them the option of having their rates re-calculated by the Valuation Office Agency as though their premises were a single unit – with any savings backdated and lost small business rate relief refunded.

Until the staircase tax resulted from the ‘Woolway v Mazars, Supreme Court, Judgment 29 July 2015’, businesses in adjoining rooms or units linked by a communal lift, stairs or corridor received a single rates bill.

Following the judgment, some faced higher multiple rate bills and some had to pay more because they lost their small business rate relief – outcomes described by Business Secretary, Sajid David, as an ‘unfair rates hike for businesses’.

‘Business rates in multi-occupied properties’ links to a draft bill and consultation that together fulfil the commitment in Autumn Budget 2017 to restore the Valuation Office Agency practice relating to the ‘staircase tax’ that existed before the Supreme Court judgment.

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