A blueprint to overhaul business rates and help save the high street Some of the alternatives suggested so far are unsatisfactory. The introduction of an online sales tax - based on similar principles to the Marketplace Fairness Act in the US - would be akin to cutting off the nose to spite the face. It would level the playing field between traditional and online retailers - which at present are not taxed for the platform they use to do business - but it would not be a field on which any business would choose to play. Other suggestions have included changing the annual inflation-linked increase in business rates to the consumer price index (CPI), rather than the higher retail price index (RPI), but this would not deal with the fundamental flaws in how business rates are calculated. The British Retail Consortium, the industry trade body, recognises the need to develop credible proposals to present to the Treasury. So, on Monday, it will host a meeting of key finance and tax experts from the country's leading retailers. Those industry leaders should pursue a two-fold overhaul of business rates. In the short term, to ease the pressure on the high street they should seek a freeze in the annual inflation-linked increase in rates, while also pressing the Government to speed up its appeals process for business rates. According to Mark Rigby, chief executive of business rates specialist CVS, the Valuation Office Agency has a backlog of more than 182,000 appeals from businesses about the valuation of their properties and the resulting business rates payment. This backlog, up 96pc on five years ago, is costing businesses more than £2bn in inflated business rates. In the long-term, however, the retailers must press for a restructuring of how business rates are calculated.Under the present system, every five years the Valuation Office Agency calculates the rateable value of Britain's properties - roughly equivalent to its annual rent - and determines a "multiplier" of what proportion of that value will be paid in business rates. This multiplier, known as the uniform business rate and set at 47.1p for 2013, makes business rates unique as a tax in Britain because it fixes the total payment to the Treasury at the same value every year. Unlike, say, corporation tax or VAT, it does not ebb and flow with the UK economy. According to Sir Philip, this makes business rates a "fix." Retailers should look for the multiplier to be scrapped, and the tax permanently fixed at a certain percentage of the rateable value of property. Secondly, Britain's property should be valued more often. The Government's decision to postpone a revaluation scheduled for this year until 2015 - meaning retailers will have to pay business rates based on peak property rents in 2008 for another four years - was staggering. In order to accurately reflect the balance of the economy, valuations could take place every two years. This may require an expansion of the VOA, although modern technology surely makes its job easier. These changes would help to level the playing field for high street retailers and online because rates would start to fall in line with the declining rents on beleaguered high streets. The changes would also provide retailers with greater clarity on their tax bill. The revamp would likely cost the Treasury tax income, but it could retrieve payments by removing some of the rate reliefs it currently grants to charity shops and agricultural land. Charging business rates on agricultural land would raise around £300m a year, according to Jerry Schruder, head of rating at Gerald Eve. Charging charity shops may appear controversial, but surely there are better ways of helping charities then absolving them of business rates? Rate relief for charity shops is disfiguring troubled high streets by encouraging charity shops to fill stores at the expense of traditional retailers. Britain, or more specifically England, is already behind in introducing such changes and modernising its property taxes. The SNP in Scotland has launched a consultation on business rates - calling the revaluation in 2017 an "opportunity" for change - while the Welsh government has proposed cutting rate relief for charity shops and introducing a sliding scale of relief for smaller shops. Even more damning for Westminster is that it was specifically warned six years ago to conduct this revamp of rates, because the existing system would put pressure on businesses during a recession. In his 2007 review of local Government, Sir Michael Lyons advocated fixing the multiplier at a set percentage and conducting more frequent property valuations, particularly in times of economic hardship More revenue would be raised during periods of growth, and less during periods of downturn. This system should have economic benefits as it would make taxation better linked to the market situation, helping to ease demand during growth periods and support it during downturns," Sir Michael said. Given what has happened to the world economy since 2007 - and the damage caused to the high street as a result - Sir Michael's words look particularly prescient now. Surely it is time the Government started listening. The problems on the high street are the result of its inaction so far.