There is some misunderstanding here. Business rates are much like private rates - a tax to pay for local services based on the value of the property you have in the locality. Its merit is that its easy to collect - no argument about income, no room for evasion or avoidance. Its big disadvantage is that property prices arent stable so every so often you have to have a revaluation which is what is happening here.
And it is a poisoned chalice for politicians. House values are still fixed at a notional 2005 value simply because any change would bring riots. Voters might want public services but they want someone else to pay for them.
Which of course is what happened when Maggie did change the system to a much more logical Poll Tax. Everyone paid the same for local services just as they would pay the same for trousers at M&S. Didnt matter that it was much fairer, people didnt like it. There never is acceptance that any change brings losers as well as winners. The public expects just winners.
As for the business rate change, what you dont seem to have picked up Pandy is that its a zero sum game. There are as many businesses getting reduction as an increase. And isnt it better for the rich southern areas to pay more and the poor northern ones to pay less?
Even the issue of house prices isnt straight forward. many of the Soutwold people moaning about house prices wouldnt, if they were house owners, want them to fall and most wouldnt want large scale housing development which is the only way that house prices will fall.
