COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY

2010-04-28 11:39:53

Cil - Community infrastructure Levy, this new government stealth tax is possibly the most onerous new tax yet. This new charging regime came into force on the 6^th April and allows local authorities to place a financial charge on all types of planning permission which involve adding an extra 100m² of floor space. The idea is to raise funds to carry out infrastructure works within the local authority area as well as the wider region. The difficulty for the development industry with this new tax is that it takes the funding of such improvement works away from the normal tax system and ensures that the money comes from landowners instead of from government coffers. The new system sits alongside the current section 106 system; this means that the landowner has to agree to pay these taxes in order to gain planning consent nothing more than legalised bribery!!

We are currently waiting to see the actual levy rates that local authorities will be applying, but we can be sure that the costs associated with development have gone up yet again!