You pay taxes because that’s the price of citizenship, Graham. Taxes are not a price paid for the individual services you might use, but an act of solidarity with your fellow citizens. We support each other through the tax system (people who need healthcare, kids going to school, pensioners entitled to dignity in retirement, and so forth) because that’s what living in a civilised society entails. The alternative is the social darwinism of the USA.

Even if you exclude paying off the bank debts the Irish state is still in deficit by approx €12 billion each year. There remains a yawning gap in our public finances whether or not we count bank debt, and we have the choice of either massively reducing the scope and quality of our public services or paying more in tax to fudn them, including property taxes.

Have you included the billions paid by the state to unguaranteed bondholders in that calculation Desmond?

Yes, I have. The deficit of in exces of €12 billion annually, is teh defricit between the State’s income (primarilly) from taxation and the cost of delivering only the public services. It does not include the costs of servicing the national debt, nor the money spent on bondholders, nor any other banking-related expenditure.

Thats simply incorrect desmond. You are not including the money handed out by state owned institutions to unguaranteed bondholders who bought shares after the bank guarantee i.e. the billions handed over by AIB. If these monies were used to bridge the gap, as they should be, the gap comes down to about 4 billion which is easily within the scope for borrowing on the bond markets

But rates were abolished in the 70s and since then you have a significant growth in population and spending …your contention re income tax 2% makes no sense…. it would be like saying well welfare spending was alot less in the 80s so why not go back to those levels of pay …

That makes no sense given the constant falls in income tax rates from 1997 onward.

And you’re goign to pay thousands more. Public services do not come as a once off event, neither should taxes on property.

True Desmond, then they shouldn’t have hit me with a massive stamp duty bill in the first place, it’s the being hit twice that I feel is very unfair.

And that’s a fair point, Brian. It’s not fair on people like yourself at all. The difficulty though is that with the State’s finances in crisis we can either pay the ongoing and new taxes necessary to ensure those public servcies are there when we need them or we cut them right back. Given the choice I’ll pay the tax to keep the services.

It’s always a special offer week from this government. For being a loyal customer you can have a kick in the balls, a kick in the face, and . . . .wait for it. . . .. a fong up the nawney. THREE for one. How do they do it?

The government is spinning the figures Grinder. 900,000 approximately is the number of properties which have been registered to pay the tax. So the majority of eligible properties have been registered due to the landlords who are registering/paying for multiple properties.
But the majority of eligible people (750k) or around 52% have still not registered or paid. This is a huge campaign of civil disobedience and the government will not be in a position to implement any property related tax in the face of such opposition from the people.

Irish people pay relatively low levels of tax compared to other European citizens. if we want European levels of public servcies, including local services, we will have to get used to paying European lebvels of tax, including property taxes.

True, but we do pay very high levels of tax for the services we actually receive and with the councils actively shedding services such as refuse to private companies the value we would potentially get for a northern European taxation system is decreasing rapidly

Desmond,you obviously didn’t do your homework as Ireland pays the third lowest taxes in Europe.The difference is that the higher paid don’t pay their fair share and others are getting a very unfair amount of grants,subsidies and tax breaks.

@ Desmond – absolutely true. More people need to grow up and accept this in Ireland. Nothing is free. The two options would be to private services, and people pay the service providers directly, or to socialise services and be taxed by the government. Not paying is not a valid option. Most people declaring themselves as born-again left-wing in the last few years are either being disingenuous or are misinformed. Socialism is not and never was a ideology of “I don’t have to pay, others should foot the bill for me”.

Nikolas,What is wrong in Ireland is that your paying tax’s from your wages and your also paying to have services like bins and if you live out in the country you don’t get services like sewerage,public lighting,public footpath’sand public transport,all of these you have to pay yourself.And in this household charges they say that this charge is for all these,but at the moment your paying for these services out of your tax’s which was put up 2% when rates were done away with.So how can you say that we are looking for services for nothing.

Tony …hello Tony? We are the only country in the European Union without a tax on the value on our principal residence…are you suggesting that we are different to everyone else?

Nikolas is spot on. To paraphrase Wendel Holmes, I pay tax because I want to live in a civilised country. I don’t measure out the tax I pay against the precise services I use, becasue I recognise that living in a civilised society means that as a citizen I have a responsibility to others, just as they have a responsibility to me. Tax dodgers, whether its the wealthy who hire accountants to minimise their tax or people who try to evade paying property taxes, represent that mé féin stratum of Irish society that is in large part to blame for why we have crumbling public services in the first place. To reiterate, if we want Euroepan levels of universal healthcare, high quality education, decent public transport and income security for people who are unemployed, disabled or elderly, then we have to pay European levels of tax, including on residential property. The mé féiners might wish to live in a dog-eat-dog world, but I understand that I am my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, just as they are mine, and that means I pay my tax.

So what do you suggest? This is not about bailing out the banks, this is about fixing our economy which has lost a massive income source. Leaving bailing the banks aside the country has a short fall of income(taxes) versus outflows(expenditure, thats day to day stuff like hospitals, schools, social welfare etc).

Its mad when you think about it. For the last 20years taxes on the property sector (stamp duty, CGT and VAT on sale of houses etc) funded our day to day spending which was really stupid and reckless and is no way to run an economy. No political party came forward to challenge this, they were all happy to ride the gravy train.

The country needs to move to a more sustainable tax base where it is not reliant on tax from one particular sector of the economy and taxing property is an accepted tax base in almost any other developed country

The proposed property tax will go to pay for local services, not paying off bank debt.

@stone & Desmond, we had local services before the crash and we had no property tax – the money that was used to pay for those services back then is now channeled into paying off national debt, this is why they have had to introduce this tax. So Martin is, in fact, correct – this tax is being used (indirectly) to pay off debts accrued by banks.

Cpm, government income falls during a recession. Given a huge amount of the government’s income came from taxing the housing boom, they were going to be seriously undercut even if they didn’t bail out the banks. It certainly didn’t help, but your point comparing pre-crash to post-crash is invalid.

@JayK – so you’re saying the money that is now being used to service our debts couldn’t be used for to pay for local services?

*couldn’t have been

Cpm, yes, we had local services and did not have water rates or property tax. We also build up a considerable public spending deficit in a very short amount to time. This as an argument for more taxation, not less. Changing the weighting of the tax system so that the burden is more fairly shared is a valid an necessary option. Decreasing the total tax revenue is not a valid option. As you said yerself, we pay little enough tax when compared to many other European nations.

@CPM .. during the boom years public servcies were paid to a significant degree out of transaction-related taxes, e.g. on property. With the collapse in this sector we all of a sudden discovered just how unsustainable that arrangement was and have a yawning gap of over €12 bilion annually in the State’s finances, even before the cost of servicing the bank debt is factored in. There are three ways in which we can address this deficit, (1) we massively cut public services back to match our much reduced income, (2) we massively increse tax in order to make up the deficit, or (3) some combination of the two. The balanced approach is to take the third option, but that necessarilly means increasing in tax on individuals, including those of us on modest incomes, up to levels consistent with those we see across Europe. It really is a matter of basic arithmetic and no amount of complaining about the money going to pay bank debt is going to make that numbers problem go away.

So we’ll just starve our public services of revenue and hope for the best?

well then you better not move to the UK or any other developed country then where the tenant pays the rates.

Such as? We pay refuse charges, parking, water rates coming soon, road tax, Resident’s association green fees which covers grass cutting and maintenance. What exactly will the council do for me with the money? Let the banks and insurance companies pay for their own gambles and crimes and then there will be money for the councils. I haven’t paid the household charge and don’t intend to. I don’t pay rent on property I own.

I don’t get many public services. I pay for my own bins, have my own well and septic tank. I live in the country so no street lights etc.

Why are people in this country so accepting to being robbed multiple times for the same thing?

I’ve said before I wouldn’t mind paying for a service if I actually got it!

People saying every other country has it. Wake up will you. In for example Spain they pay e200-e300 a year in community charges but that money actually goes into your community for repairs and maintenance. They have big bins everywhere so you could basically throw out the contents of your house. They also get a key for a swimming pool but they have the climate for that.

Steven, you got in before me. Fair play ;)

No option for NONE…Not voting as “I Do Know”….But won’t be paying any of the unsecured Bondholder taxes….!!!!

That headline is like being asked; would you like me to punch you on the left or right side of your face!!! Like this scenario both are going to bring pain.

Rural Home Owners would be very unjustly treated!

“Local” Household Tax …….. for what “local” services?

Rural Home Owners get:-
1. No mains water
2. No public sewage system
3. No street lightning
4. No footpaths
5. No cycle lanes
6. No buses
7. No Dart
8. No Luas
9. No public parks
10. No subsidised theaters

Ah, don’t be mean, Pat. Sure, you can borrow a library book. Isn’t that worth E100 a year? :)

Gardai, Nurses, sanitation ( not just hoy sold waste ), libraries, museums, galleries, taxes tend to go towards lots of very nice things. When was the last time you were in a park or at the beach?

@Ronan, you say “I believe that everybody should at least pay some token, in order that they may appreciate better the services and infrastructure provided for them.”
What services? With the currently discredited flat charge, Michael in rural townland bungalow who gets nothing from the council pays the same as Pat in town, who gets water, streetlights, waste collection etc., And they both pay the same as Sean who has a mansion, a holiday apt in Benidorm and possibly even a Cayman Islands bank account.
It might be fairer if a system based on income was used to apportion some amount towards essential services. But not a property tax. A persons home isn’t an income generating tool as it is for investors or speculators. Taxation without taking into account means and ability to pay is theft. Worse, it’s robbery with menaces.

I think a rate payed in direct correlation with services received is the fairest way. Like others have said what are people living in the middle of nowhere getting for their money. Bad roads with the ditches growing in, they’re on private water schemes, for street lights we have moon light. I’d have no bother paying 50-100 euro a yr as long as the roads in the locality are kept in good nick. But don’t tell me I’m getting local services.

I think it should be flat rate and not based m2. We have many families that did buy decent sized houses and are now in negative equity struggling to make ends meet you can’t take blood from a stone!!

Another interesting point I’ve heard although it was before my time, many of our fine country houses big and small had their roofs tore off when people couldn’t pay the tax based on value during the 60s or 70s correct me if I’m wrong. As a fan of history and preservation I’d hate to see this happen.

There is a HUGE difference in a property tax based on the value of an investment by someone who probably has several properties and a tax on the only home of the majority of us. For the probably 98% of us who have a home this asset isn’t an investment to earn money and therefore it should not attract tax. The money people use to buy their home is already taxed as they earn it. It follows that a property tax is unfair and certainly unjustifiable on an individuals sole home.

@Graham … every, and I mean every other country in the EU levies taxes on residential property. The idea that the home should be free of tax has no meaningful basis. You might as well argue that you should not have to pay income tax because its a tax on your private labour. We are one of the lowest taxed countries in the EU, yet we want European levels of high quality, universal public services. That has to be paid for and that means we ALL should be paying European levels of tax on our income, other assets and on our homes.

Like the way Greece “stood up” and refused to pay their taxes?

Worked out fantastic for them didn’t it……

Couldn’t hear you with Inda’s helmet in your mouth

Sitting back like coward peasants and refusing to speak up for the Irish populace has worked out fantastic for us David hasn’t it?

The collective forelock tugging and servility by FG when dealing with our unfair debt burden has worked out fantastically hasn’t it David?

Demeaning themselves and the country as the good Europeans who quibble nothing has worked out fantastically for us hasn’t it David?

Aye, stand and up and be counted. According to the lefties, if we voted No we would have got a deal with our bank debt. If we had voted Yes, there would have been no deal.

Now, if I recall correctly and maybe I am in a different country than you guys but we voted Yes and got a deal anyway. Does that mean the lefties got it wrong, again?

Answer is obviously no. They are always right. Even when they are wrong, they are right.

No Kevin we got the promise of a deal, I’m yet to see anything significant happening and there isn’t even any bluster about it coming from govt. now that the referendum has been consigned to history.

Then don’t expect clean water, smooth roads, a police force or acceptable levels of education.

Thatr’s called a poll tax and was tried, spectacularly unsuccessfully, by Thatcher’s government in the UK. Experience across every other country in the EU demonstrates that by far the best and fairest way to pay for local services is via a progressively-applied, property-related tax.

I think I misread you Joe when you wrote “occupancy”. Apologies.

@Desmond, all the govt did was rename it Des, to Council Tax and it’s a fortune, I was paying somewhere
In the region of £300 per month!!!
So I have no problem with a €100 per YEAR tax!

I’m afraid they didn’t, Shirley. The Poll Tax was a tax on teh number of individuals living in a property, The Council Tax is a tax on the value of the property irrespective of how many people live in it, expect that people living alone get a discount.

Sorry Des my point was that a ‘tax’ was never abolished, it was just replaced with a different way of taxing, if that makes sense! – its still taxing people in their homes which is just wrong IMO!
Still paying an extortionate amount of money nevertheless.

I live in london and pay council tax on a 1 bed flat of £85 a month! Do i enjoy paying? No! Am i happy to pay it? Yes – But my bins are collected, the streets are kept very clean, should i have a problem with rodents or pests the council will come out, should i have a problem with noisy neighbours the council will come out and the list of services go on – my fear for ireland would be the government would abuse this kind of system and divert money from Donegal into a national fund which would then be spent elsewhere! If they could assure that every penny of the council tax would be spent in the relevant councils and for the benefit of the people of that county then yes i would agree to a tax if it was diverted to dublin then a very big NO

When I lived in the UK Shirley I’ll be honest and say I didn’t mind paying council tax, I’d rather not have if I could have got away with it obviously, but as far as taxes go I was ok with it, you got a yearly bill showing how much went to the police, the fire brigade, to cover your bins and to the general running of the council and I felt I was getting value. My original post I’m sorry should have begun with IF we have to have it here I would prefer… As things stand I am against, we had as we already pay for a lot of those services privately, have the USC, a lunatic level of VAT….

@Nikolas OUR INCOME TAX pays for roads street lights, bins…..That was the case before there greedy sharks wanted a quick fix of our money ….fast.

And in the meantime you’re happy to sponge while Gardai, teachers, nurses, road builders, sanitation workers, libraries, museums and community centres are providing services to you and your community. Is that fairer?

Hopefully the Gardai, teachers, nurses, road builders, sanitation workers and everyone else will have better understanding of the situation than yourself Nikolas. A lot of them already realise this is a legitimate political protest in order the force the government to defend the interests of the Irish people instead of international financial speculators. When the government begins to do it’s duty, then it can come back to the people again and ask for our permission to introduce a household/property tax. Currently that permission is denied and rightfully so.

Coddler – all the professions named will be far less understanding of the situation if that do not receive their wages. The star is currently unable to pay their wages, hence the bailout to cover the deficit. There’s a basic flaw in your argument, which is the confusion of two separate issues. There is a dire need to reform the tax system so that it is more fairly weighted. But to follow on and say tax does not need to be paid is disingenuous. There is absolutely no validity to any argument that says there is any benefit in reducing tax revenue overall. We need, in fact, to increase tax revenue overall to the level of other EU countries if we want a similar standard of services.

As for how you put your argument forward, I’d offer you some constructive criticism:

Don’t personalise the debate. It damages your credibility when you imply that your opponent is less intelligent than you are. It may not be your intention, but it makes you appear arrogant and lacking in empathy in a debate that should be steeped in empathy, being about the greater good.

When you call people sheep, you are insulting the population of this country en masse, which is not a good tactic if you are trying to persuade them to agree with you.

In both these points I am not attacking you, I mean the opposite, you seen to be an individual that is intelligent enough to debate and present points without needed to rely on understand, negatively populist tactics, ie: mudslinging.

There are good points here from both sides, but there is almost an unavoidable implication that many people are against taxes only because they don’t want to pay. They want something for nothing, and paper-thin after-the-fact arguments relying on emotive rhetoric do not successfully disguise this.

Karswell, If you look back through the thread, you will see that the people I insulted deserved to be insulted . Nikolas for example accused me of sponging so I responded in kind. Anyone who debated respectfully received the same courtesy from myself.

Anyway, on to the more important points. You’ve countered a number of arguments which I did not make. I’m not claiming ‘tax does not need to be paid or that ’there is any benefit in reducing tax revenue overall.’ I am saying that this particular Household tax and the pending property tax should be withheld by the people as a legitimate form of political protest until such a time as the Irish government honours their commitment to the Irish people instead of betraying us.

The bank bailout, the budget deficit and the current introduction of new taxes are not separate issues. They are inextricably linked in cause and effect. The reason that we cannot finance our budget deficit is because we bailed out the banks and reason that all these taxes and cutbacks are being introduced is to pay for the consequences of that socialisation of private debt.

Most countries including Ireland have a budget deficit most of the time. They finance the difference by borrowing the money in the market. Even in the depths of the 1980s recession, Ireland was always able to go to the market until Brian Lenihan bailed out the banks in 2008. The markets began to realise that Ireland would not be able to cover the massive banking losses and pay them back and so the interest rate they demanded rose to an unaffordable level.
This pushed us into the hands of the ECB/IMF who now lend us the money (with interest) so that we can pay the banking debt as well as our budget deficit which ensures that the financial speculators suffer no losses. In addition, they attach conditions to the money they lend to us like the introduction of the current property tax we’re discussing . If we stop trying to pay the astronomical illegitimate banking debt and are reimbursed for the €65 billion that has been wrongfully stolen from us, then the markets will lend to us again at a reasonable rate as we are a perfectly viable economy without the private debt millstone.
I would have gladly supported the introduction of a progressive property tax any time up to the start of the property bubble madness in the late 90s both as means to broaden the tax base and discourage the worst of the property speculation. I do not support the introduction of a property tax now so that the population can pay for the sins of the bankers.

“A property tax is a form of wealth tax, so it’s more progressive if its graduated rather than a flat rate.”

As long as it would stay with the owners of the property, sure. I can see it, down the line, like in the UK that people residing in properties would have to pay the charge (council tax), and the landlords would pay nothing, which I think is rather unfair. On the contrary though, I don’t think its fair for people who would have paid huge amount of stamp duty when buying houses to have to pay more tax on top of that. Its all very much a big mess. I have no problem paying taxes so long as they are spent on building proper infrastructure and amenities, but we all know this won’t be.

I completely agree Keith that it would have to stay with the property owner, rather than the property occupier/tenant. This is what happens in the US, which is why in cities like New York most people rent rather than buy as the property taxes are huge.
The stamp duty issue does muddy waters considerably, maybe they might be able to include some sort of relief for those who bought in the last 10 years, or those in negative equity or something like that?

Cynical posturing much.

Ironically, there’s a clear correlation in comments between a blanket refusal to pay tax and a low standard of literacy. I’m envious of all those that believe that we can simply avoid paying taxes and still avail of services. Sure, water cleans itself, doesn’t it?

sniping, not snipping :-), and there should be an apostrophe in “peoples”, after the s if you are referring to more than 1 person. Capital letter for “what” and “jesus”, apostrophe in “its” between t and s.

Sorry, only joking. You are absolutely correct in your comments!!

It doesn’t really matter. The landlords will pass on the charge in rent increases. They’re not just going to go “oh it’d be unfair to pass this on to my tenants.”

I paid stamp duty, so this seems like a double tax. We’re in massive negative equity, have lost a good 30% of household income due to loss of business and pay cuts, and we’re paying our bills. But the more bills they send our way, the more the likelihood is that we won’t be. We’ve already had to restructure some stuff just to keep going.

We no longer have sky, a landline, health insurance. We switched to very slow mobile broadband. Our estate wasn’t properly built (but it passed govt inspection) and the council are refusing to do anything about the Homebond they managed to extract (which is going to build a playground apparently, not sort out the faulty plumbing under the footpaths).

Why should I give the council a penny? They’re incompetent. They’ll spend my money on lattes. I’ll spend it on electricity and petrol and clothing and food.

Also, you know how the government overcharged a bunch of us on that health levy? Yeah, I applied for a refund on that in February. Let’s see how happy they are to give me back my money.

JR. Well come to the club .in an effort to keep his home my son signed his home over to the local authority under the RAS scheme while he works in the uk he connot pass this on to the tennent plus he now has to pay the NPPR charge so he now has pays 300€ a year and he is not living in ireland yet the tennent pays nothing
Your right The point i am trying to make is why is it that house owners have to pay not local authority tennents who also us the services .
Houseowners are the new poor ,people on benifits have nothing house owner with 60000€ negative equity top that

A property tax is a wealth tax.

“A property tax is a wealth tax”.

Is that from the FG spin handbook?

Get real David! The tax will obviously be designed so it hits the working class people with a one bedroomed house. If you have a massive estate, you get a tax break for being rich. I’m telling ya, its the truth. The SF handbook told me so and its gospel I tell ya! *waves finger*

The idea that all we have to do is soak the rich and all our deficit problems will blow away on a summer breeze is fanciful in the extreme. Whatever money we could liberate from Ireland’s class of wealthy thieves and banksters will not close the €12 billion deficit on current spending/income, nor will it fund European levels of public services that the Irish people consistently say we want. To do that we have to have a fair, progressively-calculated, widely-based and sustainable tax base in which those of us on modest incomes also pay more in tax, including residential property taxes as the rest of Europe does.

Does the rest of Europe pay VRT?

Wealth tax ……. maybe not ….. does not produce revenue stream …. second house OK
Property Tax … maybe not ….. land is excluded , including Farms and large walled gardens of big houses.
Asset Tax ………maybe not ….. cannot liquidate it or part of it to pay the tax …. no where to live!

Its a “Fodder Tax” …. you are just “tax fodder”.

Anybody who pays this tax is a docile sheep and should have ‘Baaaaaa’ tattooed on their silly little bottoms having first been fleeced of course.