Edward Trevor said that businesses, especially shops, are paying unfair rates levels which are disproportionate to the rental value of the properties they occupy, as there has now not been a reassessment for 15 years.
Mr Trevor believes that the parish rates system will ‘collapse within the foreseeable future’ unless it is reformed and the cost of resurrecting it would be high.
And he alleged that the parish Constables are behaving ‘undemocratically’ by resisting proposals to introduce laws which would allow new revaluations to be carried out, a move which was approved by the States during last year’s budget.
Len Norman, the chairman of the Constables’ Committee, said, however, that Mr Trevor’s claims are ‘absolutely untrue’.
Mr Trevor said: ‘The current assessments are the average rental values for the properties in 2001/2 and at that time were probably more or less correct. But it is obvious to anyone with an ounce of grey matter that rents have changed over the past 15 years and that prime areas have moved, particularly in St Helier.
‘If you look at Colomberie – it used to be a créme de la créme shopping centre, now it is not. By the same token, the Esplanade used to be nothing to shout about, now it is the créme de la créme.
‘This means that businesses are paying disproportionate rates based on 15-year-old valuations. In particular, retail seems to be paying too much and offices too little.’
The rates system taxes land-owners based on the value of their property, with some of the proceeds going towards the parish and the remaining ‘Island-wide’ portion to the central States Treasury.
The States approved proposals in the Budget last year calling for regulations to be introduced so that the rates can be revalued. But Mr Trevor, who is also the chairman of the St Helier Assessment Committee, said the Constables, who oversee the existing rates system, had responded to this with ‘prevarication’.
He added that he believes revaluations should be carried out every ten years but fears that the parishes, which administer the rates system, do not have staff capable of doing this. He believes that a central rates committee should be set up to replace the existing system, which is divided between the 12 parishes.
Mr Norman said Mr Trevor had failed to recognise that how rates are assessed had changed since 2002. ‘What he must understand or recall is that about 12 years ago, the States moved away from rental valuations to attributes and the condition of properties. The rates are not based on rental values now.’
He added that he had followed up with the Treasury Minister to ask what
the ‘way forward’ was with bringing forward the Budget proposals.
‘I was the one who asked [Treasury Minister] Alan Maclean what he wanted to do to take it forward. So there has been no blocking or “prevaricating”,’ he said.
