I've no way of actually proving that I personally know of plenty of retired couples in precisely these circumstances so if you don't accept my word for it there's not much I can do about it.
However, I would point out that many of these couples bought their (now valuable) houses in the early 1970s (when average second-hand house prices in Dublin were less than €10k - source:
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/re...ts/statisticalyearbook/2004/ireland&theeu.pdf) and the average pension paid to a retired civil servant last year (€24k) is publcly available information. I assume you are not disputing the exemption from income tax (€36k) for a couple once one reaches 65?
A house has both housing and investment components. If you buy a house you expect it to meet your housing needs but also to increase in value like any asset. From your figures, adopting a 'buy and hold' strategy in the 70s appears to have paid off. Great - they made good investments. Furthermore, Ranelagh, in the 1970s, like a lot of Dublin, was fairly grim. It had a largely transient population and was full of bed sits, with nowhere to eat but the Pronto Grill. If you bought there then you took on a level of risk that you could have avoided if you bought a new build in the suburbs. And if you take on investment risk you expect to be rewarded for it.
As for the income tax, this would be better put that where you are a married couple and one spouse is aged 65 years or over you do not pay any income tax where your total income is less than 36 grand, but if your remuneration is above this you pay income tax in the same way as everybody else.
That's where we fundamentally disagree.
If somebody holds an asset whose value is significantly attributable to or derived from services provided out of the public purse (policing, proximity to schools, etc) then I think it is entirely appropriate that society imposes a levy on that person - regardless of their income. I'm not arguing that we should have meaningful property taxes simply because they have them everywhere else - I happen to think that there are fundamentally justifiable reasons for taxing capital assets whose value largely derives from publicly funded services.
Actually, we don't. This is (sort of) the point made by Winston Churchill in the 1909 election. But Mr Churchill was talking about land owned by 'land monopolists' who bought land to hold it until it 'ripens', i.e. until it went up in price, frequently due to publicly provided services (e.g. drainage, etc.). I'm very sympathetic to this view, e.g. where it concerns development land or where it provides a private benefit. But this is not the situation regarding family homes. By no reasonable standard can someone with a family home, hopefully intending to pass it on as a bequest to their descendants, be regarded as a land or property monopolist (i.e. they are not rigging the market price at which the property sells) and it's unlikely that any increase in value is solely or largely due to the general provision of publicly funded services available to all. Prices change for a variety of reasons, and it's difficult to factor out increases due solely to e.g. proximity to a school from e.g. increases due to home improvement, changes in taste, etc.
However, where we are an outlier in terms of our approach to any issue then I think it's perfectly valid to question that approach. Don't you?
Yes, but this approach is not adopted or is dismissed when talking about tax reductions to those of equivalent countries.
Again, I disagree but I think you may have misunderstood the point. As things stand in Dublin, it is quite commonplace for mature "empty nester" couples to live in large, suburban homes while their offspring are trying to raise families in cramped apartments. There is no incentive for the older cohort to "right size" to accommodation that would be more appropriate to their needs and hence the mis-allocation of resources.
I understood your point only too well. We have already had this debate before
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/if-the-average-family-size-is-2-4-why-are-we-building-3-bed-semi-ds.205046/#post-1530009. What is this “right size” nonsense? At the risk of repeating myself, these are peoples' private property and it's for the owner to decide what is the utility value of their property. Simply put, if people won't move out of a 'too big' house it's because the price being offered is insufficient to compensate for suitable alternatives. Everything has a price and the price the 'older cohort'' is being offered just isn't enough to make them want to sell. And who is to decide on what is a “right size”? This is for the owner to decide; it is nobody else's concern. When you buy a house it doesn't come with a tag saying if the state or some busybody arbitrarily decides the property is not 'appropriate to your needs' we will rig the tax system (i.e. introduce a 'meaningful property tax') to force you to a 'right size' accommodation that somebody else but not you will judge as appropriate. It's not a 'misallocation' of resources. It's just an allocation of resources you don't like.
I'm not suggesting for a second that the State should intervene to force the older cohort to "right size" their accommodation needs.
Actually, I think you are.
However, the under-utilisation of their property clearly represents a cost to society. A meaningful property tax would help to address this problem.
This is nonsense. How do you judge 'underutilization' of private property? I need a room just for my collection of Bob Dylan CDs. How is this a cost to society? Seriously, where underutilization represents a cost to society is in the allocation and management of local authority and other state funded housing, i.e. property provided out of the public purse. Demand for state funded housing typically exceeds supply, and immediately you have a policy problem on allocation, i.e. should it be allocated to those (a) with the most need (however you define this) or to the most deserving (e.g. the working family that cannot get credit to buy their own property)
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...uld-be-prioritised-for-social-housing.204999/. If public policy cannot or will not rationally allocate and manage state funded housing, it is doubtful it can with a person's private property.