Government denies ‘secret plan’ in place to raise property tax

The Government has dismissed a claim by Fianna Fáil that it has a secret plan to increase the local property tax after next year’s local elections.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said it had never made any secret of the fact that local authorities have been given the power to increase or reduce property tax by up to 15 per cent from 2015.

Fianna Fáil spokesman on Public Expenditure and Reform Seán Fleming issued a statement after today’s Public Accounts Committee meeting saying the Revenue Commissioners had confirmed at the hearing that local authorities have been empowered to apply a 15 per cent increase in property tax from 2015.

“This is a deeply cynical move by the two Government parties. As soon as Fine Gael and Labour get the local elections out of the way they intend to hit families again,” said Mr Fleming.

He said the clear impression in the minds of the public was that the tax would not change for three years but, buried in the legislation, was a clause allowing local authorities to inform Revenue by September 2014, of their intention to apply an increase of up to 15 per cent from January 2015.

However, the Department of the Environment pointed out that Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan had issued a widely reported press release back in March in which he pointed out that local authorities would have the power to vary the property tax rate from 2015.

Mr Hogan also said at the time that 80 per cent of the tax collected would be retained in the local authority area with 20 per cent going into the national fund.

“It is recognised international best practice that local services administered by local authorities should be locally funded. From 2015 local authorities will have the discretion to vary the LPT by up to or less than 15 per cent and this will further strengthen the autonomy of local authorities,” Mr Hogan said in a statement on March 12th.

The Revenue Commissioners pointed out that the deadline for filing the property tax return is now less than three weeks away on May 28th. Everybody who owns a property is liable for the tax whether or not they have received a form from the Reveune.

So far, 637,466 people have filed returns to the Revenue Commissioners. This amounts to 40 per cent of the estimated 1.6 million house owners liable for the tax. Of the returns to date 441,570 or 70 per cent have been filed electronically. The Revenue helpline has been contacted by 294,116 people.

The Revenue said it was most important that people who wanted to have the property tax deducted at source from their salary, pension or social welfare payment should make a return by May 28th.