That’s a different issue Truthseeker; those were circumstances beyond your control.
I don’t see a scenario where someone in your position should be forced to pay. You don’t have net assets and also have a low income.
Why I'm in favour of a properly constituted property tax
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That’s a different issue Truthseeker; those were circumstances beyond your control.
I don’t see a scenario where someone in your position should be forced to pay. You don’t have net assets and also have a low income.
The whole debate around this is:
1) Whether it is affordable
2) How to collect it (from everyone!)
3) How to objectively calculate it
4) Whether it is fair
Payment of stamp duty at point of purchase addresses all of these problems.
If you think about it logically for one minute, the benefits of moving from a transaction based tax at point of purchase to some unfair, unknown, unobjective, uncollectable and unaffordable annual value based tax simply do not stack up.
The only possible benefit is short term revenue generation until the property market moves back to a long term equilibrium where a steady number of houses are bought each year. A knee jerk, ill thought through means of taxing property to fill short term taxation shortfall is not good long term planning.
There are an awful lot of people in truthseekers position who are unable to pay due to these circumstances and they should not be expected to pay .
This then means that besides the 600,000 that did not register and the homeowners that cannot pay the amount that can pay is going to be a very small number is this actually feasible .
It is going to cost millions to take nonpayers to court and we still do not have a comprehensive data base of homeowners .
This then means that besides the 600,000 that did not register and the homeowners that cannot pay the amount that can pay is going to be a very small number is this actually feasible .
It is going to cost millions to take nonpayers to court and we still do not have a comprehensive data base of homeowners .
Completely agree !
Why don't the Government just listen to the likes of Ronan Lyons ?
From seeing him on VB'S show the other night and having read through his website http://www.ronanlyons.com/2012/08/27/property-tax-its-not-rocket-science/
I really think he is an expert on the issue and should be listened to.
The Government will make a pig's ear of the property Tax issue as they did with the Bankruptcy issue ignoring the experts and bumbling on ....and on...
No connection to Ronan Lyons
Hi seagull
i cannot believe that a pyrite house will actually be charged a property tax have you not been given an excemption?
Its really adding insult to injury . No one would ever buy your house with pyrite sorry to say and i think even it was fixed it still has an attachment to pyrite and would make buyers very wary.
i cannot believe that a pyrite house will actually be charged a property tax have you not been given an excemption?
Its really adding insult to injury . No one would ever buy your house with pyrite sorry to say and i think even it was fixed it still has an attachment to pyrite and would make buyers very wary.
truthseeker
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Well they were, but there are thousands and thousands like me! Even if they kept their jobs their negative equity is huge.
I am already being forced to pay the HC! Im not exempt!
Very interesting article. But site value tax seems fair but I think the government want to raise as much cash as possible as quickly as possible.
I doubt there is the will to sit down and thrash out a fair system, I refuse to believe none exists. I suspect it's more to do with political laziness.
I doubt there is the will to sit down and thrash out a fair system, I refuse to believe none exists. I suspect it's more to do with political laziness.
Taxes are NOT optional. That’s like saying that excise duty on cigarettes is optional because you don’t smoke – but what you mean is that the origin/trigger for the tax is optional; but the actual tax itself is not optional once you do/buy/own something that gives rise to tax. Buying property is optional, paying a lawfully-due property tax is not optional.
The December budget is undoubtedly going to have higher taxes in it – somehow the government is going to have to raise more revenue. If we don’t have a property tax, income tax will probably have to go up more than it otherwise would and benefits will have to be cut more than they otherwise would. One way or another, people will have to pay more/get less. No-one wants this to happen but we spend massively more than we take in so there is no choice for the country.
The same can be said about many taxes that not everyone pays – fewer than 2M people pay all of the income tax yet everyone in the country benefits, fewer than 150,000 people pay half of all income tax yet everyone benefits. VAT is about the only tax that is paid by everyone. There will always be many sources of government income but there isn’t always (ever?) a direct payment-benefit connection.
truthseeker
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Eh, youre not saying anything different to what I say, just formatting it differently, but thank you for telling me what I meant
So what do you propose the thousands of people in negative equity who have already triggered the tax liability but are not in favour of property tax do about it? They cant sell their properties. When they bought them there was no trigger.
Simply pontificating on what a tax is and the state of the country is not a solution to a real problem. Its quite clear the population is very divided over this with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people yet to pay the household charge.
Raising taxes is one thing, but shouldnt there be an element of fairness? There is already a generation of people in this country who may never escape the problems of negative equity - is it fair to burden them with yet another tax?
T McGibney
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No offence whatsoever to Ronan Lyons who is both smart and a nice person. However, he doesn't even live in Ireland anymore and yet he's portrayed as some type of guru on the Irish economy. And his suggestion that the government give everyone a tax credit next year to help us pay auctioneers to value our homes & sites is frankly laughable.
You’re welcome – although I’m still struggling with your ‘property tax is optional’ being the same as my ‘taxes are NOT optional’ but anyhoo...
What does being ‘not in favour’ of the tax have to do with anything? See discussion above – I thought we agreed that taxes, once triggered, are not optional. Being in negative equity is irrelevant too – two people could have paid the same price for the same house but one has a bigger mortgage because the other used more savings – why should their liability to property tax depend on their loan amount? And not everyone in negative equity is in a ‘can’t pay’ situation. Answering your main question, I propose that everyone who has triggered the tax and is lawfully liable for the tax pays the tax. Not paying is tax evasion.
The ‘pontification’ (I would call it explanation in the face of apparent lack of understanding of why the money is needed, why it being collected this way and what the alternatives would be) is required as there seems to be an undercurrent of ‘I can’t pay/won’t pay and this tax isn’t really needed by the government anyway’ – it IS needed and if it isn’t collected as a property tax it will be collected elsewhere – but obviously the ‘can’t pay/won’t pay’ people are hoping that the alternative won’t affect them –someone else should pay. In terms of solutions, as things stand now, the tax has been triggered and there is no solution other than – pay the tax or watch the arrears pile up. I think for those who would genuinely struggle to pay, there should be some mechanism to register, park the tax and have it build up with a modest interest charge until the homeowner is in a position to start paying it off or until the house is sold and the tax taken as a charge on the proceeds.
Taxes are never ‘fair’ – there will always be an element of ‘I’m paying too much, someone else should pay more’. With apologies if this is perceived again as pontification (perhaps I should preface with IMHO), any solution at national level for those affected by negative equity should be a separate issue to national taxation policy. Lobby for negative equity assistance if you feel strongly that something should be done about it but the issue shouldn’t impact or be built into what is hopefully a stable long-term property taxation structure.
truthseeker
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Its clear you cant see where Im coming from.
I wouldnt have bought a property if there was a property tax. But now (due to negative equity) I have no way out of being liable. Its fundamentally unfair.
I can see where you are coming from. The sad thing is that due to NE and if the bank refuses to let you sell you will be in a property tax trap. Just like a NE trap and the tracker mortgage trap.
Also, should the property tax be levied on the owner or the beneficial occupier? If it is to fill central government coffers then the former, but if it is to fund local government then it should be the latter.
truthseeker
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Thanks. I was starting to think I wasnt making any sense.
I dont want to be criminalised for something that I have no choice in, but it looks like I (and thousands of others) will be.
dereko1969
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I haven't read his article but the part in bold was actually a recommendation from the Commission on Taxation - a €75 tax credit for anyone who gets a valuation from an auctioneer.
If the Government actually followed the recommendations for the Property Tax included in the report of the Commission on Taxation then I think most people would be less het-up about it all.
Exemptions for those who paid Stamp Duty in the previous 7 years
Roll-over of PT for those unable to pay until such time as property is sold (though this does come with an interest payment)
Self-assessed within various bands (though the tables in the report would have to be looked at again, as there will be many more homes worth under 300k than when written)
See more in Part 6 here....
Perhaps the Govt is letting all the doom merchants have their say so that when they introduce the tax on the lines proposed people will go hey that's not so bad....been done before.
dereko1969
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I'm sorry for your current situation but frankly I don't believe that the lack of a property tax had anything to do with your decision to purchase an apartment.
You are in a horrible situation and typify so many people who have seen so much of what they worked for disappear almost overnight.Eh, youre not saying anything different to what I say, just formatting it differently, but thank you for telling me what I meant
So what do you propose the thousands of people in negative equity who have already triggered the tax liability but are not in favour of property tax do about it? They cant sell their properties. When they bought them there was no trigger.
Simply pontificating on what a tax is and the state of the country is not a solution to a real problem. Its quite clear the population is very divided over this with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people yet to pay the household charge.
Raising taxes is one thing, but shouldnt there be an element of fairness? There is already a generation of people in this country who may never escape the problems of negative equity - is it fair to burden them with yet another tax?
It’s so hard not to be emotive when talking about these issues and yet the solutions have to be informed by hard economic fact.
The facts are the we have the highest marginal rates of tax in the EU and amongst the highest VAT rate (maybe the highest?) and despite the fact that 60% of our wealth is in property we don’t tax it in any meaningful way. We can’t ignore it if we want to have a balanced and broad taxation system.
I don't think you can discount his ideas on the best way to introduce this property tax because of where he lives .
I don't know if he owns property / land here or not ,but his ideas seem very well thought out and fair to me , granted there will be tweaking here and there but the general thrust of his ideas should be pursued by the Government IMO.
Assuming that the introduction of a property tax is a given and significant money must be raised from the property tax ,What would your preference be ?
I'm always open to changing my mind if I hear a better solution.
Just for clarity I'm not portraying him as a guru on the Irish economy .
If there needs to be a valuation done of a property, a credit against any future liability seems fair to me if its a once off event to help set a base valuation.
truthseeker
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You can choose to believe what you like but I almost didnt buy due to management fees - if you had added property tax on top of that it definitely would have changed my decision. Im not sure why its hard to believe it. I drive a tiny car to avoid huge motor tax.
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