More than £60,000 a day 
is being spent on business rates appeals, according to a study from consultancy Daniel Watney.
It found that 492 appeals were being lodged with the Valuation Office Agency every day, with total figures for the past five years topping 898,000.
An appeal totals on average £129, meaning they have cost the taxpayer some £1.1bn since 2010.
Debbie Warwick, partner and head of rating at Daniel Watney, said that the sheer number of appeals would add weight to the argument for reform of the system. The appeals system changed in 2010 with businesses being forced to use it to get information on their rates calculation. That has left the VOA struggling to work though a backlog.
At the end of March there were more than 280,680 unresolved claims in the system.
The revelation of appeal costs to the public purse came as government said it could be losing £230m a year from rates avoidance. The loss is primarily coming from empty rates, which were introduced in 2010.
Warwick said: “Reforms around empty rates penalise those earning no income and have led to more instances of avoidance.”
