Channel Tunnel owner threatens legal action against UK over tax hike

LONDON, June 12 (Reuters) - The Channel Tunnel owner said on Friday it would challenge the British government using all available routes after its business rates tripled over the last three years, with the upshot that it was no longer willing to invest in the UK.

• Eurotunnel is owned by Paris-based transport and infrastructure operator Getlink, which also runs car and lorry train services through the tunnel between England and France.

• CEO Yann Leriche told the FT it is facing a rise in its rateable value from £40 million a year to £118 million a year.

• The company said in a statement that the near tripling over three years of its business rate, a tax levied on property, had come without any change to its infrastructure and with "no clear justification".

• "We have no choice but to use every legal option at our disposal to challenge that," Leriche told BBC Radio.

• "At this level of uncertainty, we are not willing to invest in the UK," the company added.

• Leriche says that between business rates and corporate taxation, Getlink will now pay 69 pence on every new pound of revenue generated in the UK.

• Several business and employer groups have warned the government that the cost of doing business is reaching a tipping point, and said higher taxes are inflationary.

• "Business is not a cash tap that can be turned on without consequence," Confederation of British Industry CEO Rain Newton-Smith said earlier in June.

• Britain's tax office said its valuation methods were long established and reflected the specific facts of each property.

• "If ratepayers think their valuation is wrong, they have the right to challenge it and, if needed, appeal to the independent Valuation Tribunal," a HMRC (tax office) spokesperson said.

(Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle)