Business rates work for a large UK water company
Our client was paying relatively higher levels of business rates than its peers, and wanted to see what could be done to bring its rates into line with other water companies.
The implication was that the tax authorities were not adequately taking into account our client’s network upgrades.
- Reviewed the existing assessment to see what information was included, then identified additional information sources that could be helpful.
- We analysed the new data in order to create evidence for the tax authorities to make their assessment more robust. We presented this evidence and led discussions with the tax authorities.
- Through an iterative process we reached an agreement with the tax authorities on the best approach to capture the relevant data.
- The tax authorities were happy to have more robust evidence to include in their assessment.
- The resulting assessment implied a significant (5-10%) reduction in the annual business rates liability.
- Our client received a cash rebate worth £10s of millions.
