Revenue before the Oireachtas Finance Commitee

[ang1170]

I must be missing something, I think your position is just as illogical, inconsistent and inconvenient as the Revenue's.

You are being told very simply - pay by Debit Card any time up to the end of November or by SDA on 21 March.

But that’s exactly where the inconsistency is: one date for one method (which happens to be well before the tax is due), and a different date for another method!

Nothing else is like this. Consider a utility bill, for example. The bill for a particular month might say: "the amount is X and it is owed now, you have 30 days to pay, if paying by DD we’ll take it on day 20 of this (or whatever)."
Why can’t they be consistent (and fair, and convenient) and say exactly the same? "The tax is due on 1st Jan 2014, if paying by lump sum you have 3 months from that date in which to pay; if you have a DD, we’ll take it on 21st March. Your other option is to spread evenly over 12 months, but if you want to do this we need to know by end November 2013." How difficult can it be?

[Note: I’m aware that a significant part of the problem is the law they are working to in this case: we all know the track record of competence of our law makers.]

 

[Bronte]

The waiting time on 1890 at lunctime today was 6 minutes. We phone people back in the evening if they leave a message.

People overseas were able to pay it last year, but not now. It will be fixed by Monday.

This is not true that the waiting time was 6 minutes. I phoned yesterday, it took at least 20 minutes, and because I had no pin, which I imagine is most people's issue, I had to be passed to Head Office. After 10 minutes on hold for them the original guy came back to me and said was I sure I wanted to wait, which I did, and he recommended that I wait until the evening. All told about 45 minutes to get someone to help me.

I'm overseas and will see now if I can pay today.

 

[Bronte]

Not sure where to put this.

Notice to Revenue

As I live abroad, apparently the letters went to my property address. At least that's what your head office people think. There is no option on the LPT website to put a correspondance address. I managed to change this with a person in the helpdesk head office. At least I think I did, as it was done manually by your staff, I won't know until next year.

You now have an email address for me, can you send people like me notification by this method next year. (I'm not sure if the email option was available last year)

I printed out the acknowledgment summary on the website, it does not put the propertly address, the only identifier is me, my prsi no and an acknowledgment no. But the email acknowledgment does have the Property Id and the address. Luckily I've the email confirmation, but I had to tick a box to get this, I was being extra carefull on filling out everything, easily missed otherwise.

I have no documentation from you of the Property ID to log in or the Pin, that would have saved your staff, and me a lot of unnecessary time wasting. The waiting times are riduculous.

There is an issue with people who have subdivided units this year. I assume it's a hangover from the NPPR and Household charge. It was not an issue last year. It required your staff to be 'persuaded' to delete the extra units. By units I mean where say a property is one house, but it's divided into 2 or 3 flats/bedsits/whatever, or a house that has a granny flat. For the LPT it is one charge, not multiple charges as was the case with the NPPR. I recommend your staff delete these 'extra' properties. Initially yesterday your staff wanted me to send a letter confirming that it was one property, but I managed to persuade the person that I wasn't trying to 'diddle' the system. The person was very helpful and practical.

 

[44brendan]

I was listening to Morning Ireland this morning on their discussion about money lenders and the presenter actually outlined an e-mail from a listener who stated that he had used a money lender to borrow funds to pay his property tax! Why on earth would someone do that

 

[Bronte]

But that’s exactly where the inconsistency is: one date for one method (which happens to be well before the tax is due), and a different date for another method!

How difficult can it be?

I must say Ang I agree with you, when I initially realised that I had to even do something this year I couldn't get over all the dates involved.

In relation to how difficult can it be, it's like someone sat down and decided to make the most complicated set of instruction on how to pay a bill ever. It was so easy with the NPPR and household charge. When that worked so well, why they they reinvent the wheel.

Any chance anyone would post up one of the elusive letters, it seems to to me more people didn't get them, than received them.

 

[dereko1969]

I was listening to Morning Ireland this morning on their discussion about money lenders and the presenter actually outlined an e-mail from a listener who stated that he had used a money lender to borrow funds to pay his property tax! Why on earth would someone do that

Because they're an idiot who has been brainwashed into not thinking by the media and politicians who have failed miserably to RTFM!

1% of people (including myself) have decided to take the easiest option by paying out of our PAYE wages, why that figure is so low astounds me, even speaking to colleagues (civil servants) who don't want Revenue to have their bank details when they already have them for TRS purposes and have no undeclared income is just plain stupid.

 

[RainyDay]

1% of people (including myself) have decided to take the easiest option by paying out of our PAYE wages, why that figure is so low astounds me, even speaking to colleagues (civil servants) who don't want Revenue to have their bank details when they already have them for TRS purposes and have no undeclared income is just plain stupid.

That low figure really surprised me too. But surely Revenue don't actually need the bank account details, as the deduction is made before the money goes into the bank account, and is remitted to Revenue by the employer?

 

[newirishman]

That low figure really surprised me too. But surely Revenue don't actually need the bank account details, as the deduction is made before the money goes into the bank account, and is remitted to Revenue by the employer?

Wouldn't want my employer to know if I own a property, and how much I think it is worth. Also, this creates additional admin overhead for whoever does the payroll - don't see the point of putting costs and burden on private companies to collect a tax that has essentially nothing to do with their business.
I don't understand why you would go for anything else but monthly direct debit - spreads out the payments over longest period of time with no extra costs whatsoever.

 

[RainyDay]

Wouldn't want my employer to know if I own a property, and how much I think it is worth.

Fair enough, though if the employer has your address, he can easily get a good idea of what it is worth from the property price register, if he was bothered.

Also, this creates additional admin overhead for whoever does the payroll - don't see the point of putting costs and burden on private companies to collect a tax that has essentially nothing to do with their business.

Is any tax anything to do with the business? It's really a tiny effort to add a single entry into a payroll system for the staff in question.