I would think that this law breaker and local postman has breached his employment contract by discussing in public the private business of his employer and a customer. He should be sacked for both reasons. How could a respectable employer continue to employ a lawbreaker.

explain

To the best of my knowledge Big Phil’s dispute in Portugal was nothing to do with the payment of local taxes. Another myth pedaled by the don’t pay campaign.

You’re misrepresenting the don’t pay campaign. Everybody acknowledges that hogan is defaulting on his payment because he is not happy with the service he is receiving from the management company. The rank hypocracy is where he threatens people in rural areas who receive little or no services who are not paying cause they’re not happy with theirs.

One set of rules for the phil hogans of this world, another for the unwashed masses.

No I’m not and it dishonest of you to deny that when this story broke the don’t pay campaign linked Hogans dispute with a private service provider to the household charge, leaving many to believe that he had failed to pay taxes in Portugal. I have corrected a number of posters on both this and other forums on this matter. People have disputes with service providers all the time. Using it as an excuse to not pay your taxes is disingenuous.

Reread your original post reg. If hogan won’t pay because of the service he receives then somebody in rural ireland who receives hardly any has every right to have a problem with being threatened by such a bare faced hypocriee.

So by your logic just because he is a minister he should pay in full for a service that he disputes with a private company regardless of the circumstances. Grow up!

If someone has a dispute with the council in Ireland then get them to sort it out and then pay your household charge. This myth the people in rural Ireland receive no services is nonsense.

If hogan is entitled to dispute his charge, I am entitled to dispute mine. I have already paid for local services through taxation additionally supplemented by the universal social charge. This money has been stolen by government to cover bankers gambling debts. There are also additional billions available to government to fill the hole left by the money they’ve stolen, but thats been pilfered as well. If you want to cheerlead the biggest crime infliced on our people in the history of our state thats your own business, I refuse to pay as I am not paying twice for the same services. See you in court phil.

Reg, What services do people in rural Ireland get?

Rommel it’s not so much what you get but the number of services that are available should you require them or wish to avail of them. Also the county council system is in much need of reform but since you asked about servers, here are some.
Fire services (and yes you have to pay extra should you require them). It still costs just to have them available.
Library services – most counties have libraries spread throughout the county. Some also have mobile ones.
Housing grants – my own father-in-law benefited from a grant to help pay towards the replacing of his roof recently.
Recycling facilities – many councils provide these at no cost or minimum charge for household items.
Water – currently provided free of charge to those on the public system and many rural dwellers are.
Parks and leisure facilities – they’re not all in towns. Lifeguards on beaches for example.
Environment – litter control, hedge and grass cutting etc.
I’m sure there are plenty more.

+1,000,000,000

To be fair Warren, its still by a long shot the biggest show of civil disobedience n the history of the state.

I wouldn’t wait for the bill if I were you. Its probably a ploy by the government not to send out letters to everyone. That way more of you wont pay and rack up extra interest charges.

Doubt it. As far as I can make out kinny et al know their on to a no winner. Both this and the next GE. Their just biding their time until the gravy train gets to the station nothing more! They don’t even push the troika on such matters because they know their own wages are over bloated……tick tock timers on countdown FG are gone! Never will I waste my vote for change and transparency not on these pigs!

I know and prettymuch agree with what your saying Rodrigo. flat rate isn’t fair per say. but their going to bring in a property tax to replace it and I can only guess that the lowest of the low prop tax will be at least 3 times the current charge, why would you want to bring that on you faster?

Rodrigo I believe at this stage that you do not own a house as that would explain your constant trolling on the subject.

What trolling? He makes valid points.

He means people with a difference of opinions are trolls.. But from where I’m sitting that now makes him a Troll

Bilbo baggins! I’m well aware that the property tax is going to increase, if and when it’s ever brought in! If I then decree that it’s being done in a fair and transparent manner, I shall pay my share! Personally speaking though, I don’t think this government has the intelligence to do anything on this scale fairly! Just look at how their trying to address child benefit for example! Until they find the courage to make their wealthy and powerful friends contribute in accordance to what’s only right and proper, I shall refuse to pay!

What about the social contract we give to people through our health and welfare systems?

If we don’t plug our deficit then we don’t have the money to provide services to the most vulnerable.

What about the verbal contract between your party, fine gael, and the irish people that not another red cent would go to the banks? What about the election contract i.e. your partys manifesto, that inda uses to wipe his arse?

You talk about plugging the defecit while YOUR party shovels BILLIONS out to unguaranteed unsecured bondholders that we could use to plug said defecit instead of crippling ordinary people.

Run for election David, PLEASE.

And at that point your children will take on your debt. NICE !!!!

No it is not fair but the household charge is an interim measure until a fairer system is introduced next year. In an ideal world everyone should pay something but to get the thing up and running it is more practical to target the property owners initially. In France there are two taxes, an owner and a habitation tax. If you own and live in the property you pay both while if you are a tenant you only pay the habitation element. Seems pretty fair. However to say that private tenants will pay nothing here is not quite true as I’m sure that most landlords will be using the income generated from rents to pay.

As of now, despite promises, no fairer system is going to be introduced next year. The system is going to be same actually.

@ Reg. Don’t make me laugh, fairer system. What has this goverment implemented so far thats fair? Is the pain of austerity being shared fairly? Are the budgets fair? Are the cuts being done in a fair way? Fair me backside, they’ll claim it will be fair while people are registering, and then we’ll see if they inflict more of the same or not.

You are brainwashed by a bad government like most people are here.Too many people have paid.People here are like sheep.They say Amen to everything be it good or bad.

“People here are like sheep”, So I’m quite smart? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8335465/Sheep-are-far-smarter-than-previously-thought.html

Sheep are ace little creatures who contribute to society by providing protection to other sheep and wool and meat to me.

If people are like any mammal found on a farm then they’re like a party of small schoolchildren on a day trip to that farm. “Wah ‘snot fair! Don’t wanna!”

I would agree with you on other issues but not this one damo, for my own perspective, I have not paid the tax and have no intention to. It’s unfair and unjust, if it were fair, equitable, applied across the board (council homes) and I could see the good it was doing for my area ( invoicing like parts of the uk have) I would be more amenable to it but its just going into general tax spend to which i see it paying for a nice big lunch for michael noonan and james reilly. It may not be right but I see it as a protest of sorts against this already high tax economy, it may be futile but it sends the gov a signal, between my reduced pay, rising bills, water and home charges, bins up 110%, I pay for my own estate maintenance and I already pay all the other taxes that are going (income, vrt, vat, USC, pension levy, pension, Prsi, quinn levy, mandatory insurances, etc) many have just had enough of paying for the perceived high salaries, expenses and waste in a broken and defunct system. It might not be the stiff upper lip that we should show but that’s just how it is.

“I would agree with you on other issues but not this one damo”

That’s allowed.

“I see it as a protest of sorts against this already high tax economy”

Yes and some see it as a protest against “unfairness” or against FG or against Labour or against bondholders or against banking or against Enda or against public service inefficiency or against austerity or against them having to contribute to society or against whatever they just don’t like.

When there’s some sort of consistency to a movement then it might achieve something, as it is it’s just a bunch of people whining.

You seem grumpy today damo. I’ll chalk it up to the weather. People are let down and feel they have been conned by politicians, this is a matter we have/ had a choice in and people made that choice. Whining as you put it can be the start of something bigger, that is possible.

“I’ll chalk it up to the weather.”

I’ll chalk it up to the disgust at the serial tax evasion.

“People are let down and feel they have been conned by politicians”

About that. Who voted for the current shower really thinking they’d be all that different to the previous shower? Who? Seriously. There’s a cigarette paper between them. You trusted a politician and they let you down. My, what a massive surprise. Words cannot convey the sarcasm.

Damocles. think you’ve missed a point there… Majority of the FG/LAB electorate did not vote FG/LAB into power. They voted FF out. That was exactly the same as what they are doing now with this tax. They are more like sheep than they know. If they had the balls to do something about the country maybe they would have voted independent or gone way out there and voted SF.

“Majority of the FG/LAB electorate did not vote FG/LAB into power. They voted FF out.”

The voted FF out by voting FG/Lab in. Yes. But in doing so they replaced one shower with a virtually identical shower.

Sheer, unbridled idiocy.

To be honest I don’t think any party would have made much difference. They are all with hands tied behind their European backs the minute we took on the bail out. The choices are limited when in this sort of position, and I cant see one party with the balls to make a real change. It’s gonna be slowly slowly out of this one even if FG/LAB are voted out. then what? next crowd still have the same choices and decision with their hands tied

Quite, Simon, hence my other comments about Party Politics.

I’d also like to thank then for the extra monies they will generate.

It’s very doubtful that any extra money will be generated Simon. The costs incurred in collection will exceed any extra penalties paid. It would be interesting to count the man hours that the local authorities spent so far trying to identify property owners who are boycotting the tax. In any case, the main purpose of the €100 charge was not to generate revenue for the state as most of this would be consumed by the initial set up costs. The primary goal was to generate a reliable register of property owners for the introduction of a property tax and in this objective it has failed spectacularly.

Well by my calculations they have already made an extra €954,100 on what they should have collect by now. Are you saying that they have spent nearly 1 million Euro on sending out letter to-date? And lets not forget the other 600k + that will incur even more charges. I’d say they could easily top 3 – 4 Million out of this..

You’ve hit on something there Simon . Phil Hogan should encourage everyone not to pay the next round of Household tax next year so that all those extra penalties can be collected. This strategy will be a huge success and generate large amounts of extra tax revenue.
By the way, it’s more like 750k people that are boycotting the tax rather than your figure of 600k.

don’t think I’ve ever heard a comment off you that doesn’t involve BS. If everything you read is BS, why do you bother reading all the time .?

So if renters and owners have to pay, then some houses will generate double income. Is that what your saying? The onus has to be on the owner of the property other wise it just gets messy. someone could be in rented accommodation for 3 months then move to another place how do you track that?. some house have multiple tenants what then?

No that’s not what I’m saying.

Whatever the charge is, Divide it by 6. Put it on the electricity bill (no matter which company issues the bill). Every two months a percentage of the tax is paid by the occupiers of the property.

If the occupant is a renter & moves on, they’ll continue to contribute to it.

It’s just an additional tax, it’s not a tax on the physical property, they just need to attach it to something & property is pretty much the only thing left.

It’s “the user pays” principle. The inhabitants of the property, be they owners or renters should be paying for the services availed of.

Someone who’s an “accidental landlord” (bought somewhere when single, met someone, moved in together & now unable to sell), should not be penalised.

The same reason motor tax should be on fuel, is the reason it should be on the electricity bill. It would be a smaller percentage spread out over all users of the facility.

They should also not be divorcing council funds to plug holes elsewhere causing this problem, but that’s another debate.

Think you’ve just proved my point on how mess would all get.. Do you realise how many people get their energy supplies cut off every month. And divide by 6. wow that’s really going to work.
..
Renters already pay to a landlord. the government then collect off the landlord. How many flight people do you think there would be as renters. At least with landlords their hardly going to pick up their house and move it somewhere else, this is why the attach it to the propety. Landlords will pass some of this charge on in the form or increased rent. But as they are making money out of renting then they will foot a higher proportion

Those getting utilities cut off probably wouldn’t be paying anyway. At least if it was split over the year. A percentage would be paid.

Well said

There it is in a nutshell Damocles. Well put, everyone of the defaulters points knocked well and truly on the head. Yeah it’s true too that the extra monies they will have to pay will be very welcome!

Sir you must be rolling in money.I am not.

“you must be rolling in money”, Not quite rolling, no. But I can afford to set aside 2 euros a week.

If you really can’t afford that then contact the LGMA and see if you can arrange something with them. It’d work out cheaper in the long term, plan ahead, even sheep can plan ahead.

If the HHC was €1000.00 would you pay it ?

If the HHC was €10000.00 would you pay it ?

Just because it’s “only” €100.00, it doesn’t make it right.

This is an additional tax made up by the Government in a desperate attempt to close the massive deficit due to bad financial regulation and an unwillingness to reform the public sector.

Why should the people of this country have to pay for that? The Government would save multiples of the amounts generated by the HHC by implementing public sector reform but it’s just easier to (once again), ignore the white elephant in the room and hit the normal Joe Soap – the same Joe Soap that’s struggling to make ends meet as it is.

“If the HHC was €1000.00 would you pay it ?”
I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

“If the HHC was €10000.00 would you pay it ?”
I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Are these figures sourced anywhere or are you plucking them out of the ether?

Caroline, How much is your interent connection costing you?

Or your internet connection.

I’m merely giving an example.

You are the one that said it’s “only” €2 per week.

If the Government said that the HHC was €10,000, would you blindly pay it ?

Are you really that weak that you will do whatever is asked of you by the Government ? Unlike you, I’m not and nor are hundreds of thousands of other people. There is such chronic waste and inefficiency in the public sector that is being ignored. Like I said previously, if the Government tackled this, the country would be much more stable financially and we wouldn’t need this farcical HHC. We are effectively paying for the weakness and cowardice of this Government. Are you now going to tell me that the public sector is not wasteful and inefficient ?

“If the Government said that the HHC was €10,000, would you blindly pay it ?”

Is that likely to happen? Or are you just making up numbers?

I’m asking you a hypothetical question. You do know what a hypothetical question is don’t you ?

Answer the hypothetical question.

The man with no name has made a fair point:
This is an additional tax made up by the Government in a desperate attempt to close the massive deficit due to bad financial regulation and an unwillingness to reform the public sector.
Fine Gael/Labour are spineless and yesterdays little publicity stunt with the Childrens Allowence was proof that they are a government for the rich.

You’re asking a hypothetical question that may have no grounding in fact or possibility.

It’s grossly unlikely that having charged 100 euro per household and having said that a charge of that level would finance local authority services that the charge would rise by a factor of 100 times. So, I would never pay a household charge of 10K because there will not be a household charge of 10K to pay.

You are either completely missing my point or are ignoring my point.

You state that everyone should “pay up” and that people that don’t pay are tax dodgers. Just imagine for a minute that the Government announced that the HHC was €10,000 (please do try). Would you pay it then ? I doubt it and you would then be a tax dodger.

This is a makey up tax with an amount pulled out of a magicians hat to try and plug a gap. I really wouldn’t mind paying the HHC charge if it wasn’t going into a black hole of chronic inefficiency and waste.

By the way, you never answered my previous question : do you think that the public sector is efficiently run and not wasteful ? (I’m not holding my breath on you answering this as it proves me right and you wrong).

You are either completely missing my point or are ignoring my point.]
Or you’re making it quite badly.

Just imagine for a minute that the Government announced that the HHC was €10,000. Would you pay it then?
It won’t happen. So I won’t be paying a tax that isn’t charged. I evade non existent taxes. Naughty me.

Do you think that the public sector is efficiently run and not wasteful?
No public sector on Earth is run efficiently. Not paying taxes will only suck up more resources in the inefficient public sector and ultimately cost us all more. I’d argue, and have argued quite passionately in the past, that all tax code should be reviewed on a cost benefit basis and any tax that costs to administer more than half of what it reaps in tax income should be scrapped leading to a more efficient tax code that will reduce tax avoidance. The public sector should also use Jack Welch’s review and 10% fire policies to keep people trying hard to improve themselves and the concept of a “public sector job for life” should be thrown on the scrapheap. I’d welcome public sector reform. I don’t think failing to pay the household charge can acheive that.

I’d agree that no public sector on earth is efficient but that doesn’t mean we should accept that.

The Government has a massive financial deficit. They have two options to tackle this deficit :

1. Cut Public Sector waste/inefficiencies and reform the Public Sector into something resembling a well-run organisation.

2. Tax an already hard pushed population with more and more taxes.

Option 2 is easy. Option 1 requires leadership, planning, innovative thinking, political backbone and a willingness to accept and implement change.

“Option 2 is easy. Option 1 requires leadership, planning, innovative thinking, political backbone and a willingness to accept and implement change.”

Easier things are less expensive to implement. Changing the public sector would require the assistance of the Unions. Do you think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of the Unions agreeing to wholesale public sector reform? No, me neither, looks like the taxes then.

“Easier things are less expensive to implement. Changing the public sector would require the assistance of the Unions. Do you think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of the Unions agreeing to wholesale public sector reform? No, me neither, looks like the taxes then.”

Easier things are less expensive to implement – even a child knows that. The big problem with your rational though is that it’s not only about money. We are talking about the future of Ireland, the Irish people, families, our children. You really think this relentless financial attack on the Irish people because it’s cheaper is morally right ? Not everything in this world is about money. This country is bankrupt and broken. It requires serious changes if it’s ever going to get better. Taxing the population to the hilt is not the correct solution – in fact it has the opposite effect. This government promised reform pre-election but has only managed to increase taxes. Every decent economist in the world knows you cannot tax your way out of recession and that’s exactly what this shower are doing. They are cowards and morally bankrupt – they cannot see the damage they are doing they are so far up in their ivory towers.

Funny how you mention the Unions as well. They are just as bad as the Government.

Morality is a nebulous concept. I’ll leave it to the churchmen and the philosophers.

“Funny how you mention the Unions as well. They are just as bad as the Government.”

I don’t think it’s all that funny. It’s bad enough that the vast majority of the electorate contrived to replace a shower of idiots with an almost identical shower of idiots, on top of that sensible reforms can’t take place because another shower, who virtually no one voted for, can stymie any reform. Funny?

If you want this country to improve you have to, in my opinion, dispense with party politicals of the career politicians. Does your daddy having been a politician and you having trained as a teacher qualify you to run a country with a multibillion euro economy? Would someone who has at least a couple of decades experience working in business or the financial sector have slightly more chance of success? We need to dispense with FG, FF, Lab and SF and all the career politicians and bring in real people with real life experience of living and working in Ireland, people who can relate to ordinary people because they are ordinary people, people who’ll invest their way out of a recession.

These, in my opinion, are things we should do. In the meantime, however, we are legally obliged to pay this tax. So pay it, suck it up, pay it and at the same time work towards a better tomorrow.

Damocles..
The points you make in your last comment are spot on with the exception of the last two lines.
The tax in economic terms is unjust because it doesnt take in the persons ability to pay. Its a form of taxation that hurts the poorer in society much more that those better off and thats where i take issue.

@ Man with no name: And yet if you look at the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, it’s 55:45 (Sunday Business Post)

FG wanted 66:33 and Lab wanted 50:50. So the idea that tax increases are making up the bulk of the adjustment is incorrect.

“unjust”

“What if the millionaire says “Well I contribute a lot to society and I pay plenty of income tax, but a lot of other people pay nothing and take a lot out, that doesn’t seem very just to me. I’ll with hold some of my taxes.” Is that OK? Or if someone says “I don’t like what this government is doing, it’s unjust, I won’t declare my income, pay not tax and still take social welfare.” Is that OK?

You say this is unjust, well that’s a relative moral call.”

“Morality is a nebulous concept. I’ll leave it to the churchmen and the philosophers.”

Damocles
Thats just the point with this country. The millionares pay hardly any tax at all. All the tax breaks are set up for the rich. Since this austerity started the rich have actually gotten richer while the poor and vunerable are getting poorer. 100.00 euros to someone who has millions is nothing but to someone just above the poverty line it makes a huge difference

“The millionares pay hardly any tax at all”

There are about 18,000 of them based on assets, and they’re taxed on income not on assets, same as the rest of us. Recent reports show that in 2010 tax revenues from high earners paid an average effective tax rate of around 30%. According to the OECD tax database the average tax burden on wages from “All-in average personal tax rates” comes to about 21.1%.

Whoops, the 21.1% is an average over the OECD. The average in Ireland is 16.5%

http://communityplatform.ie/uploads/Tax%20campaign%20document%20-%20final%20(2).pdf

a principle which if universally applied would mean no debate on anything?

A debate is different to an argument so no it wouldnt. Debates dont deal with personal opinions and emotions debates deal with facts.

also debates arent about right and wrong and trying to get the other person round to your way of thinking, its two sides each of which states their case (which are either for or against the subject of the debate) and the person/people who state their case better comes off best. Arguments are generally about people who are convinced their way of thinking is the right way and they try to make the other person/people see the error of their ways and see they are right (and sometimes try to belittle the person who doesnt agree or use bad language to get the point across) that does not happen in a debate.

Well thats just wrong Sinead.
At the risk of getting too semantic about it what you’re describing is a lecture.

Definitions of a debate:
. a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints: a debate in the Senate on farm price supports.
.a formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.
. a formal discussion, as in a legislative body, in which opposing arguments are put forward
. discussion or dispute
. the formal presentation and opposition of a specific motion, followed by a vote

But isn’t it fun that we can debate the defintion of a debate?

I think the definition of the so called “sheep” will be decided by the people who said they wont pay and end up paying (ie following the crowd). so far there was 1 million people who said they wouldn’t pay, now that has dropped to around 700k . That’s 300k sheep in my book

Simon, you were quoting a figure of 600k people boycotting the tax a few minutes ago and now it’s 700k. Was there a stampede of 100, 000 sheep?

Honestly Simon if you’ve paid fair play but why troll the thread? You berate, belittle, and condescend on everyone’s else’s opinion why? What have you got to loose in others not paying? Your forceful opinions won’t sway anyone just infuriate them further so for that reason alone I appoint you full high king troll of the HHC thread on the journal. You may take your waiver now.

Read my post correctly it said 600k+ notice the plus sign at the end of it. My other reference states around 700k this could be either + or – I was being general as there does not seem to be an exact figure on the amount of houses that need to register, something this household charge was set up to establish. Someone had already pointed out that the figure is 750k so I’m just hitting it somewhere in the middle
sorry if I can’t be more precise than that. But hey when all you non payers finally do cough up I’ll come back to you with a more definitive figure.

Ryan. not sure I have Beratem, belittle or condescended anyone outright. I have replied to people accusations of sheep and FG supporter, and those that don’t like people who have paid, I and also made many valid points on why I think this is a good tax for the country. I think this is a good debate and a well needed one. I could take some of your opinions and turn them into Troll comments, but I have not. But If my having an opinion or interest in this subject brands me as a troll then so be it, as it really doesn’t bother me what label I get branded. I also post in other topics and don’t get branded a Troll. But there are certain subjects that people will post in with a difference of opinion that will automatic brand them as Troll or FG/LAB supporter ect.
..
Now where’s my crown so I can wear it with pride?

Simon, or should I say ‘Lamb chops’? How many of the people that registered, are exempt? How many local authority tenants in Ireland are exempt, on top of a few others? Don’t pick and choose your figures, to suit your argument. As for one Super Council, All councils in the Republic are subject to the Laws of the Dail. So there’s no difference, between Kerry and Donegal in relation to rules they are subject to. Reform the Seanad, elect the Senators and have them hold one manager of one local Authority per County to account. While holding the Dail to Account also, each Senator would have to get a certain percentage of peop[les signatures to run for the newly reformed Senate!

Fair enough Simon. Using your notation ,we’ll just say that 1.5 million (-) people are boycotting the tax at the moment.

Couldn’t agree more, people who don’t want to pay can’t have it both ways.

You do have to ask though, if property has to be taxed in some way, why keep doling out interest relief? I know it’s unfair but most if the interest relief goes to those in the largest incomes with the biggest loans. Does it not makes sense to end all property reliefs before starting to tax residential property?

Interest relief is being phased out over the next few years. Those purchasing a house this year will be the last. It should have been terminated years ago but didn’t Bertie just love giving money back to the people.

Fully agree Reg and perhaps a full revenue audit as well. I wonder where some of our shinner spinners would be with that idea.

BAAAAAAA….

Isn’t it nice that all FG trolls get together on one single thread.

Ryan – Typical response for someone who can’t stand others to have a difference of opinion, branded Troll or FG supporter. Yet you say previously that you voted this shower in. I think you should stand by your vote, or were you one of the sheep that just voted in mass to get FF out of power.

@Ryan, FG I think you have that a bit wrong there old chap

A lot of BLARNEY!!!!!!!! They just want a quick fix of our money FAST :-|

Simon, you’ve tried to post this comment on this story SIX times now. Once was enough, ta!

Maybe when posts are deleted, then explanations should be given.

We have a comments policy which you can find at the bottom of every page, or on the ‘More’ tab of the apps – but irrespective, I would have thought it fairly sensible that there’s no need to post the same 72-word comment six times when the first one was never deleted.

From an article in the Irish Times today – “One landlord who owns 130 homes paid almost €15,000, just under €2,000 of which was in late payment penalties.” Nice one!

Sometimes mistakes are made. The first comment never showed up on my browser. then the second one started going missing as well. Could easily have been a cache issue on my browser. Still not giving explanations when posts are deleted didn’t help the problem. And I’m not sure why you have to point out the amount of letters in my post does that also make a difference ?

@Simon – fair enough. On the subject of notifications, we receive an average of 5,000-or-so comments a day, a significant chunk of which need to be moderated to some degree. If we ran a notifications system it would take up well over half of our working day and we’d never get around to writing actual news.

The only reason I mentioned the number of times you had commented was in the context of notifying you that your first attempt had posted successfully and there was no need to have a second attempt.

All of the “extra” money benefit which any logical thinking person would realise will be more than negated in the time and resources taken to implement this terrible and unjust tax on people who bothered to buy a property. Yep, that’s something to cheer about. Just curious for all the home owner tax cheerleaders, is there any tax a gov could introduce that you would be against or do you just have more money than sense?

Well to answer your question there Scarr, This is the sort of tax this country needs. There has been a lot of wasted tax and stealth tax and no one seems to know where it goes. We have a gap to fill in our budget but at the same time we also need to make a stable tax system that is more transparent and more accountable, this property tax is a step in the right direction as far as I Can see. Local councils will be held responsible for their own accounts and not rely on the government to bail them out.

For a tax that I don’t agree with would be the USC and the 2% levy on insurance, These were defiantly used to bail out bondholder and the like. But seeing as USC is taxed at source there’s not a lot we can do about that, maybe at some point when the gap in our deficit is closed then USC will be abolished. until the we just don’t know.

@ Scarr, I didn’t agree with 0.6% pension levy.

Nope. yer leaving that one to your children to look after eh !!!

Now you are talking.

Keep Educating, the foolish sheep paying the charge!

The 2002 census showed that the owner occupier rate in Ireland was 77% that trend was going up and with the obsession in owning property the average joe showed during the boom years I wouldn’t be surprised if the figure was well over 80% . So with more than 50% paying the charge and only around 20% actually landlords I’m not sure the times have very good data on it. And we also know how the media love to twist information.

2006 or even 2011 census data would be of benefit here

Based on figures from the 2011 census and verified by Prof. Rob Kitchin at the Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth, 1.45m families were due to register 1.8 million houses. The government claim over 900k houses registered, but in fact over a third of these were registered by landlords etc registering multiple properties. Only 700k people have registered, with over 750k (52%) families boycotting (more info). Even if this figure slips a little, it’s clear that mass non-registration is a fact.

Here we go through all the figures, detailed by Prof. Rob Kitchin over at Ireland After Nama.

1.Housing units in state 1,994,845 CSO
2.Unoccupied/vacant housing units unsold 18,636 Housing Development Survey, DECLG, 2011
3.Renting social housing 129,033 Census 2011, Table 39.
4.Renting voluntary housing 14,942 Census 2011, Table 39
5.Being bought from Local Authorities under shared ownership scheme 23,547 Census 2006. Doesn’t appear to be in Census 2011.
6.Mortgage interest relief 19,000 Keane Report
7.Housing units in unfinished estates 34,000 Money Guide Ireland
8.Number of landlords who registered Non Principal Private Residence (NPPR) in 2011 183,551 NAMAwinelake
9.Number of NPPR registered in 2011 for the NPPR Tax 339,431
10.Number of housing units for which the HHT was paid on 1st June 2012 915,408 Dail Question Ref No: 27986/12. Clare Daly.
11.Numbers waivered for HHT on 1st June 2012 17,167 Dail Question Ref No: 27986/12. Clare Daly.
12.Number of housing units registered to multiple accounts on 1st June 2012 332,900 Dail Question Ref No: 27986/12. Clare Daly.
13.Number of accounts to which more than one unit was registered on 1st June 2012 106,332 Dail Question Ref No: 27986/12. Clare Daly.
Figures calculated from above
14 Number of housing units liable to register for Household Tax (HHT) 1,808,687 (1-2-3-4-5)
15 Number of housing units liable to pay the Household Tax 1,755,687 (14-6-7)
16 Total number of property owners liable to register 1,469,256 (14-9)
17 Number of housing units actually registered on 1st June 2012 932,575 (10 + 11)
18 Number of housing units not registered on 1st June 2012 876,112 ( 14-17)
19 Number of NPPRs registered assuming the family home was also registered on the same account. 226,568 (12-13).

Key figures
20 Number of property owners registered on 1st June 2012 (Accounts with LGMA) assuming each account also has the Principal Private Residence registered. 706,007 (10 + 11 – 19)
21 Number of property owners who have not registered. 763,249 (16-20)
22 Percentage of property owners not registered 52%

‘Track down’ three quarters of a million individuals…..easy.

Bring each ‘defaulter’ to court individually, fine them, and then enforce non-payment of that fine by finding space for them in our prisons…..not so much.

Track away boys……

All it will take is a few court cases – once a few defaulters are handed down heavy fines the rest will rush to pay up.

Tootrue, you might be getting a rude awakening one of these days.

Assertions have consequences, often unintended ones. I guess your shinner and ULA buddies will be standing by waiting to pay your fines and costs of course. In the meantime, I guess you’ll still expect somebody to clean your streets and run local services.

The usual SF manure. Running with the foxes and the hounds, funny how in NI, water charges and property taxes are not an issue for their citizens while SF are in Stormont, yet they are screaming about unfair charges down here. It’s the same with Sean Quinn, widespread support from SF in NI for him ripping off the taxpayer in the Republic yet Mary Loo Roll condemning him down here and as for the former now obese “hunger striker”/Gangster/Provo Tom McFeely…don’t make me laugh, get your ducks in a row SF, enough of your crap encouraging people to break the law…then again, nothing new there. Round up some of your socialist/provo buddies TooTrue and invest in some sewer rods, you might need them since the council won’t be cleaning your sh*t from your drains…

@Tootrue left. See how much fun it’ll be when the sale of your house is block cause of non payment of the charge. That is when they will catch most people.

you fool

Tootrue, all it will take is one case and then legal precedent will be set. If the law breakers continue and force the goverment to take them to court after that they will not only face a fine but also have to pay the costs. If people put the same amount of effort into changing the way their council runs – going to meetings & letting them know what you think – instead of looking for any reason not to pay, then things might change.

I’m absolutely fine with taking the consequences of my civil disobedience, be they fines or imprisonment. And for every person jailed there will b a hundred fined who will never vote for our FG/Labour Vichy government again. Well worth the risk IMHO.

I will be right beside you too true !! And this will be after we vote out the rubbish back slapping self serving EU loving pigs from the dail. I will never pay this, and it looks like over 600,000 other people agree. FG are out first

That Funny Ryan it wasn’t that long ago that people were saying 1,000,000 people wont be paying it.. your numbers seem to be dwindling

Don’t believe it for one iota of a second! Nothing of truth comes out of this present government. I bet a good chunk of the people who have registered are exempt anyway…waiver’s awayyyyyy. I’ll vote FG out of office before I pay this, or maybe wait until big phill pays HIS management fee’s, which ever comes first!

Lovely, Tootrue, not only are you breaking the law by refusing to provide your local council with the money it requires but you are happy to further burden the states scant resources by going to prison and be fed and watered for free. You are showing your true colours and have no respect for the law or the ordinary citizen’s of this country. The funny thing is, you are prob in receipt of mortgage interest relief currently or did before. You were probably more than happy to take that though…

I already provided them with my share which has been pilfered by this government to cover bankers debts. I won’t pay twice.

Councillors are not full time positions and the salary reflect that.

if they are part-time- then they are being paid too much again. Get rid of them all, wasters the lot of them. What do they do, pass budgets and bye-laws. Get rid of the 883 wasters, 34 councils and have one super council to do the work of these leeches! It can be done will be done and will save millions for taxpayers!

You are correct Stephen, far too many councils. I would suggest about ten for a country our size and population.

For that matter why have town and county councils? Where there’s an overlap of responsibility there’s an opportunity to abdicate responsibility.

Personally i think it should be the other way around. County councils should have more responsibility and government should have less. Politics and economic planning on a county by county basis would work far better. Can’t see Ireland getting out of the mess its in for at least another 30 years or so though. The government aren’t willing to fix the system anyway.

Paul, are you suggesting a Federalised Ireland?

Might not be a bad idea.

Scratch that, it’s a good idea.

And which part y (capable of being elected to government) will cancel a property tax once it is established? Fianna Fail got rid of rates in 1977 and look at the problems it caused. Will the majority of the electorate be stupid enough to vote for parties that makes these types of promises again? Maybe they will but I would like to think that the majority of voters will see through such promises.

At the end of the day, we’ve had a property tax by way of high stamp duty rates which are no longer and were very unfair. An annual payment will be fairer.

@ stephen “lamb chop” good one, A breath of fresh air from you, you’ll make a very valid point with that opener. It doesn’t matter how many people who registered that are exempt , The household charge was set up to get the ball rolling, and so far it seems way more than half have registered, also the amount collected has reached over 1 million of an estimated 1.6kk approx or there about + or – give or take a few k
you say don’t pick or choose my figures but that’s what everyone on here is doing as there is no data to back it up. And I’ve hardly moved my figures much 600k + to around 700k seems a ball park to me.
..
what do you mean about super council.. Will not the property charge allow each council to run itself independently. I’m not sure what you mean about that ?

We have 34 councils, subject to the same guidlines and rules. So they have to operate, around the laws passed down to them from the Dail. So be it Kerry, Mayo, Dublin or Donegal Councils, they all operate under the same structure. Why do they all need councillors passing the same budgets, with the same bye-laws and costing local rate payers/tax payers money.One Super-Council will do that, reform the Seanad and elect the Senators. Make it full-time, non-party and Independents only. They would need a percentage of signatures to run for the Seanad, hold the Dail to account and appoint the Administration to run the councils. How much money would that save, to re-invest into Services. Did you get your refund of taxes, when they privatised the bin services. Your taxes were paying for that, do you know that and now you must pay private!

If there was an Election soon, or in the morning? How do you think FG or Labour would do, I tell you one thing they are scared right now and they should be. What happened to FF, will be nothing compared to the Slaughter FG and Labour will get. If you want cuts and taxes, lead by example and not out both sides of your mouth!

You mess with them at your peril!

Gagsy if approx 50% of the people in a country disagree with something its fair to assume that its not delinquency.

Gagsy thinks like the right wing Facists, named FG! They operate on, You do what we say and not as we do!

We already pay more than our share in govt. taxes.