Proposed changes to the Council Tax proposals and appeals system

To meet our commitment to improve the appeals process and provide greater transparency, we plan to make the following changes:

• Clearly define the operational responsibilities of each organisation, the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and the Valuation Tribunal for Wales (VTW), to improve taxpayers’ understanding of who does what and when.
• Enable the VOA to provide taxpayers with their own property data and any available evidence used to arrive at their banding earlier in the process, thus improving transparency and allowing people to make informed choices as early as possible. 
• Ensure the VOA and the VTW clearly set out the choices and next steps in correspondence with the taxpayer and provide an option for taxpayers to withdraw after reviewing property data and evidence provided.
• Remove the automatic referral of an unresolved proposal to the VTW, allowing autonomy for taxpayers to decide how far into the process they wish to go.