The Pubs Tax Mystery

🚨 Why the VOA’s “Approved Guide” Is a Unique and Damaging Anomaly 🚨

Welcome to the world of property valuation, where boring manuals usually dictate your business rates—unless you run a pub. In that case, you are subject to a piece of guidance so unusual, so unique within the entire UK government valuation framework, that it deserves serious scrutiny.

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) assesses business rates for almost every property in England and Wales. But when it comes to pubs, they deviate from their standard operating procedure in a way that is highly irregular and, critically, damaging to individual publicans.

The Fun Fact: A Valuation Rulebook Co-Written by the Industry

For nearly every property type—a high-street shop, a sprawling factory, or a city office block—the VOA publishes its own, internal Rating Manual and Practice Notes. These are unilateral rules set by the government, telling businesses how they will be valued. The industry might be consulted, but the final word belongs to the VOA.

The Public House Exception:

The document used to formulate pub rates is known as the “Approved Guide for the Valuation of Public Houses.”

The key word here is “Approved.”

This guide is formally agreed upon between the VOA and a collection of private bodies known as the Pubs Rating Forum. This forum is composed of trade associations—not government officials.

The Damage: How “Approval” Creates a “Safe Harbour”

Why does the VOA cling so tightly to the term “Approved,” and why is this so damaging to individual pubs?

The answer lies in the legal concept of the “Safe Harbour.”

• In other UK Law (e.g., Money Laundering): If an institution follows government-approved guidance, they are generally protected from legal challenge or prosecution. The guidance acts as a shield.

• In the VOA/Pubs Context: The VOA weaponises this term. The “Approved Guide” does not legally require a publican to follow it, but it grants the VOA a powerful defence.

If a publican challenges their business rates in the Valuation Tribunal, the VOA can simply state: “We followed the Approved Guide—a document agreed with the industry’s representatives.”

This makes it incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for the individual publican to argue that the methodology itself is flawed or creates an unfair result for their specific business. The “approval” instantly lends an air of legitimacy to a potentially flawed, one-size-fits-all calculation.

The Anomaly: An Executive Agency Outsourcing its Tax Policy

The VOA is an Executive Agency—the operational arm of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). It is an agency of the State, responsible for calculating a form of taxation (business rates).

It is highly irregular for an Executive Agency to formally “agree” its official operational manual, which sets tax methodologies, with a private trade forum. This is tantamount to the government outsourcing its tax-setting policy to the very group that pays the tax.

The critical takeaway is simple: The organisations who claim to “represent the industry” by giving their “approval” to this guide are, in reality, simply helping the VOA defend its valuations. They are providing the VOA with a powerful legal and administrative tool that silences challenges from individual pubs.

This “Approved Guide” stands alone in the VOA’s valuation framework. Its uniqueness is a testament to the influence of the Pubs Rating Forum, and the damage it causes to publicans fighting unfair valuations is immense.

See the Guide for Yourself

You can see the guide the VOA relies on by downloading a copy HERE.

What do you think? Is it fair for the government to co-write tax assessment rules with private industry bodies?