Business rates are the latest incarnation of a series of taxes for funding local services known as rates, based on property values. The first rate was part of the Elizabethan Poor Law Act 1572, which established relief for the poor at the local parish level, paid for by inhabitants of the parish. A system of rates to fund local government and services evolved over the next three centuries, including a separate system for London from 1869 to 1963. Changes included a stricter definition of how to value for a rate; the introduction of a valuation list containing the assessed values; the ability to object to the assessed value; and the introduction of the valuation officer, appointed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue (now Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), as the assessor.