The Valuation Office Agency has placed rating information on all 1.7m business premises in England and Wales on their website. This was done in an attempt to ensure the introduction of this year's non-domestic rates revaluation goes as smoothly as possible.

On the website - www.voa.gov.uk - businesses can find their proposed rateable values for 2000-01, plus changes in the rateable value of individual properties since the last revaluation in 1995. With details of all the non-domestic properties on the internet, businesses will be able to compare rateable values with those of neighbouring premises without having to visit town halls and inspect valuation lists.

The rates will be based on property valuations in April 1998. Values in parts of the country proved much higher than in the last revaluation. But Hilary Armstrong, local government minister, commented that the exercise was "not about the government raising more money from taxes on business".

Anna Lagerkvist