Section 3: Central rating: liability and mandatory reliefs
Section 3 of the Act makes provision as to the liability and mandatory relief for persons designated on the central rating list. Persons designated on the central rating list may, under their name and a description of their hereditaments, be assessed for a number of hereditaments under one rateable value as a whole. Most of section 3 (which introduces a new Schedule 5A for the rules to determine chargeable amounts) re-enacts the provisions currently in section 54 of the 1988 Act. The changes in Schedule 5A to the existing provisions in section 43 and 44 are set out below:
The provision of improvement relief on the central rating list. Part 2 and paragraph 3 of the new Schedule 5A provides the circumstances in which improvement relief will apply in respect of a person on the central rating list where:
The day concerned falls within one year of qualifying improvement works having been completed in relation to one or more of the hereditaments to which a central list entry relates (the meaning of qualifying improvements being given in regulations made by the appropriate national authority).
Such a hereditament is not unoccupied (the government intends that improvement relief is not available for unoccupied hereditaments) and any other conditions prescribed by the appropriate national authority are met. Details of how the government intends to use these powers to set the parameters of the improvement relief in England were explained in the November 2021 technical consultation and in draft regulations published for consultation between June and August 2033. The government intends that improvement relief in England is available on qualifying improvements for one year but under paragraph 3(4)(b) the appropriate national authority may extend that period, and
The day concerned falls before 1 April 2029. The government intends that improvement relief will be available on qualifying improvements which are completed before 1 April 2028 (and therefore works completed during 2027/28 may continue to receive one year of relief in part during the year 2028/29). The government has said improvement relief in England will be reviewed in 2028 and, therefore, a power is included in paragraph 3(4)(a) for the appropriate national authority to adopt a later date than 1 April 2029,
Where the conditions for improvement relief in paragraph 3 of Schedule 5A have been met then paragraph 6(2)(a) of Schedule 5A provides that the chargeable amount is found using the rateable value against the person’s name less the value G where G is prescribed or calculated in accordance with provisions prescribed in regulations by the appropriate national authority. Details of how the government intends to use these powers to set the parameters of the improvement relief in England are explained in the November 2021 technical consultation and in draft regulations published for consultation between June and August 2033. Therefore, deducting G from the rateable value for the period of the relief will ensure ratepayers do not pay business rates on the change attributable to the qualifying improvement works.
New provisions to introduce onto the central rating list charitable rate relief in England and Wales (through paragraph 2 of the new Schedule 5A) and unoccupied rate relief for hereditaments in England (through paragraph 4 of the new Schedule 5A). On local rating lists, hereditaments occupied by a charity and used wholly or mainly for charitable purposes receive 80% mandatory relief on the face of the 1988 Act, and unoccupied hereditaments on local rating lists may, in some circumstances through regulations, pay no business rates. No similar provisions exist on the central rating list. To remedy this, section 3 introduces into the 1988 Act provisions for chargeable amounts providing 80% mandatory relief for charities on the central rating list and powers in England through regulations to provide a zero chargeable amount for a prescribed class of unoccupied hereditaments on the English central rating list.
New provisions (in paragraph 6(8) & (9)) allow the Treasury to prescribe whether an English hereditament’s chargeable amount should be calculated from the small business non-domestic rating multiplier or the national non-domestic rating multiplier. Currently the small business non-domestic rating multiplier is unavailable to persons on the central rating list.
The removal of telecoms relief (currently section 54ZA of the 1988 Act) which expired on 1 April 2022.