Property tax deadline extended until Friday, January 9th

The deadline for those who have not yet paid their local property tax (LPT) for 2015 or signed up to pay via monthly direct debits or employee deductions has been extended until Friday by the Revenue Commissioners.

Due to the very large volume of calls to the LPT Helpline over the last two days and the extremely heavy filing rate of almost 8,000 payment notifications per hour, the Revenue Commissioners have decided to extend the 2015 LPT payment deadline to 4pm on Friday 9th January.

Types of calls received to its helpline over the last number of days included requests for property ID and pin numbers, information on payment dates and payment options.

The Commissioners said such information could be obtained online through their system without any need to make contact.

Property owners who have not gotten their property ID or pin can apply online to have them reissued.

The 625,000 homeowners who paid last year’s tax by direct debit or through deductions from their wages do not have to do anything as their payments will be processed as normal. They will not have received any correspondence from the Revenue and nor should they expect any.

However more than one million people paid the LPT last year in one lump sum and they now have until Friday evening to either make a new payment or advise the Revenue of their intention to make a single debit authority payment, which will be deducted at the end of March.

The amount people will have to pay in LPT depends on the value declared for the property on May 1st, 2013, and the tax rate applying to a property for 2015. The LPT rates have changed for those living in one of the 14 local authorities that announced reductions in their LPT rates last year.

Those savings range from 1.5 per cent to 15 per cent and the Revenue has said it will make the changes automatically.

It has however warned people to check the rates for their local authority area because county boundaries and postal addresses are not always aligned and there may be situations where the LPT rate is incorrect.

If a local authority assigned to a property needs to be changed, owners can let the Revenue know online or contact the LPT helpline.

Anyone who owned a residential property on November 1st last year is liable for LPT for 2015.

Even those who sold a residential property after November 1st are liable to pay LPT on the property for 2015 if the sale went through before the end of 2014.

Property owners who paid last year by lump sum or cash payment but who wish to pay by phased payments for 2015 were supposed to advise Revenue by 25th of November last to allow time to put the necessary arrangements in place to start deductions in January 2015.

However the Commissioners are still encouraging such people who now wish to switch to phased arrangements but have not yet confirmed their payment preference, to avail of the extended date and immediately inform Revenue of their payment method.

Revenue will make every effort to implement their preferred choice for January but failing that will certainly have it in place for February thereby ensuring an equal deduction over the remaining 11 months of the year.

The LPT Helpline (1890 200 255) will remain open from 8am to 8pm on both Wednesday (7th) and Thursday (8th) and from 8am to 4pm on Friday (9th).