Companies have expressed their anger as official figures showed a 90% collapse in the number of appeals lodged against business rates bills after the introduction of a contentious new system.
Data from the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which administers business rates, has revealed that 23,770 “checks” of rates were lodged by companies in the year to April after a new approach was implemented alongside the first revaluation of business rates for seven years.
This compares with 234,210 appeals against bills lodged in the year after the 2010 revaluation.
