I established that the LVT rate in the postcode district SN3 would be about £30/sq yard/year for residential land, and Sobers, who had prompted the debate, asked:
I hesitate to ask, for fear of being labelled a troublemaker, but what about commercial property? How will that be included in your calculations? I know for a fact for example that SN3 postcode in Swindon contains a fair bit of industrial/commercial/retail property.
That's the easy bit. We just go to the Business Rates section of the VOA website and type in the postcode SN3. The first addresses that came up were on Broadmoor Road, Avro Gate on The South Manston Industrial Estate, SN3 4AG (see map below). I cut and paste the 16 addresses with plot sizes (as I've always said, HMLR know this stuff) and rateable values into a spreadsheet and it told me that the average Business Rates is £21/sq yard/year (you have to times the sq metres by 1.196 to convert to sq yards and times the rateable value by the multiplier 40.7% to work out the tax payable).
The rate I had calculated for residential land in SN3 4.. was £32, so no doubt the businesses on that estate would be over the moon if we scrapped Business Rates (£21/sq yard/year) and VAT, Employer's NIC and corporation tax (which between them cost seven times as much as Business Rates) and replaced them with a Land Value Tax of £32/sq yard/year.
So if anything that rate looks to be 'too low', but those businesses will have to pass on some of the cost savings to their employees in higher wages to cover the higher LVT on residential (NB, on the back of a fag packet, LVT would be ten times as much as council tax - which for some people might be more than the income tax/Employee's NIC that was being deducted before we change all this over) and some of the VAT saving will be passed on to their customers/consumers etc.
What a bunch
33 minutes ago
3 comments:
Ah, your postcode system has thrown a wobbler here I'm afraid. That bit of SN3 is nowhere near the other bit of SN3. Don't ask me why, but they're miles apart!
There are industrial/retail bits of the SN3 sector near the centre - the Greenbridge Retail park is in SN3, as is the Greenbridge Industrial area. Big WH Smith warehouse there and head office.
S,
1. Some postcode sectors do that. I grew up in one that is split into a) a little dormitory village that is basically part of Bradford, and then b) a chunk of a suburb of Leeds. The two are separated by a mile a fields. But I did the same price/area calcation (using actual plot sizes by guesstimating from Google Maps) for the last ten sales in each part and the values were not materially different.
2. The Greenbridge one works out at £66 per square yard, in which case the tax is £66 per square yard. Which is what you'd expect, this being a lot closer to the centre of town than the South Marston estate. There's no point disturbing a valuation already in place.
3. This is all just maths. Even if we don't know what the answer is, we know that there must be one.
4. We could, for example, have a split rate of £30 for resi in SN3 3 and £66 for industrial, or bung it all in a pot, stir it round and have a flat £40 on everything, that's up to the commonsense of the local valuers.
S, just for completeness, I did Alexander House on Fleming Way (near the centre of town) and that tells me total plot size 2,161 sq yards and total B Rates due £65,000 which is also £30/sq yard/year. Maybe the £66 is just a blip.
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