Digitalising Business Rates: connecting business rates and tax data
Read the full outcome
Detail of outcome
The government published a consultation which ran from July 22 to September 22, inviting stakeholders to submit their views on options for Digitalising Business Rates (DBR) policy and IT design.
DBR aims to improve the current system – it will connect the business rates information held locally by billing authorities in England and Wales with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax data. This will help to modernise the business rates system and improve the data available to central and local government.
The government has carefully considered the issues raised by respondents and is grateful for all of the input received. This document summarises the responses to the consultation, and provides the government’s response. Policies contained within the response document include:
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a new obligation on a ratepayer to provide a tax reference number and an accompanying proportionate sanctions regime for failure to comply with that obligation
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HMRC and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) will work together on the design of an integrated GOV.UK service that will allow ratepayers to provide the data needed for DBR, alongside the information required by the new VOA duty to minimise the additional burden on ratepayers
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after considering stakeholder feedback and early user testing the government has descoped the centralised billing element from the project and will instead focus on delivering the core matching capability which will enable better targeting of reliefs and improved business rates compliance. This will lay the foundations for a gradual development of the DBR system in the longer term, subject to future decisions to add on additional services
The introduction of the DBR obligations will require legislative change. The government will seek to identify a suitable legislative vehicle to take these changes through Parliament and will continue to work with interested stakeholders as the design of DBR progresses.
Alongside this summary of responses the government has also published a note setting out the current estimates of the anticipated impact of the policy on ratepayers.
Original consultation
Consultation description
The government has published a consultation on policy and IT design options to deliver its commitment to digitalise business rates.
This aims to join up existing tax data with business rates data held across government to allow:
- opportunities to better target business rates policy, including reliefs, in the future by having access to more comprehensive data
- more effective compliance
- a better experience of the business rates and wider tax system for businesses, including the ability to better understand and review their tax liabilities in one place
We welcome views from ratepayers, their agents and representatives, billing authorities, and any others who have an interest in the business rates or wider tax system.
Digitalising Business Rates (DBR) formed part of the government’s conclusions to its Business Rates Review at Autumn Budget 2021. Alongside measures announced in the Business Rates Review Final Report and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA’s) IT Transformation programme, DBR represents a major step towards modernisation of the system, which would tackle many of the concerns raised by stakeholders in previous consultations.
Alternatively, respondents are welcome to email their responses, making it clear which questions they are responding to.
The government will also hold a number of engagement events with livestreams on the 4 August (11am to midday), 10 August (2:30pm to 3:30pm), 16 August (11am to midday) and 25 August (2pm to 3pm), where officials will go through the consultation and give clarifications, and a series of roundtables with more detailed discussion in September. Respondents are welcome to contact HMRC if they are interested in attending.
Documents
Updates to this page
Last updated 15 March 2023 + show all updates
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Published outcome, including summary of responses and link to an impact note.
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First published.