More than 46,000 property owners across the State were availing of a scheme to defer local property tax at the end of the year, according to figures from the Revenue Commissioners.
According to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, 46,606 were availing of the scheme on December 6th. This replaces a figure of 36,125 provided by him in the Dáil on October 26th.
The figures were made available in response to parliamentary questions from Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall and while they are provisional, they indicate a surge of more than 10,000 deferrals as the year closed.
Under the Finance Act the local property tax may be deferred on the basis of insolvency, hardship, low income or death of the registered owner.
However, Ms Shortall warned the scheme comes with a large price tag. Payments deferred are charged with an annual interest rate of 4 per cent, which the Dublin North-West TD said is unfairly penalising people in financial hardship.
“My concern is that a lot of people on very low incomes are being straddled by debt – 4 per cent is excessive, in my view,” she said.
Broken down by county, the figures show the largest number of deferrals, at 13,409, were in Dublin. This figure included 6,477 properties in Dublin City Council’s administrative area; 2,797 in the area covered by South Dublin County Council; 2,538 in the Fingal area and 1,597 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s administrative area.
The next highest county was Cork with 4,750, some 1,387 of which were in the Cork city area.
The county with the least number of deferrals was Leitrim with fewer than 353. The precise total was not revealed as some categories of deferral, such as deceased owners deferrals, were given as “less than 10” to help protect the anonymity of those involved.
