Responding to HMRC’s consultation on business rates avoidance and evasion, the CIOT strongly encourages the collection of ‘robust data’ as the first step towards discouraging avoidance to determine the extent of avoidance. It recommends that regular formal evaluation of the business rates tax gap should be undertaken, in the same way that HMRC publishes tax gap estimates for the taxes it administers.
Limiting the number of times a property can benefit from empty property relief within a set period, and removing the existing reset period, would add ‘significant complexity’, it added. Extending the reset period to six months would be a simpler solution to the problem of repeated periods of minimal or superficial occupation. It advises that increasing the six-week minimum period of temporary occupation of a property (which resets the initial three or six-month relief period for business rates) should be informed by the experience in Wales, where this reform was implemented in 2022.
Responding to HMRC’s consultation on business rates avoidance and evasion, the CIOT strongly encourages the collection of ‘robust data’ as the first step towards discouraging avoidance to determine the extent of avoidance. It recommends that regular formal evaluation of the business rates tax gap should be undertaken, in the same way that HMRC publishes tax gap estimates for the taxes it administers.
Limiting the number of times a property can benefit from empty property relief within a set period, and removing the existing reset period, would add ‘significant complexity’, it added. Extending the reset period to six months would be a simpler solution to the problem of repeated periods of minimal or superficial occupation. It advises that increasing the six-week minimum period of temporary occupation of a property (which resets the initial three or six-month relief period for business rates) should be informed by the experience in Wales, where this reform was implemented in 2022.
