Sir, – I read with interest the article by Fiona Reddan (“Seven options to ease the tax burden chasing small landlords out of market”, Business, June 21st), regarding the vacating of the private rental market by smaller landlords. One group of people who are particularly hard done by in the current situation are accidental landlords, those who for one reason or another cannot continue to reside in their own homes and for whom selling those homes is not viable or is impossible.
In many cases, the only option for them to obtain any income from their properties is to let them. The rental income they derive is frequently needed to pay their own rent on new places to live. This happened to me as a result of disability.
In 2010, I had my right leg amputated above the knee. I had been living as an owner-occupier in an second floor apartment in a building without lifts. Following the amputation, this accommodation was inaccessible to me and I was obliged to find alternative accommodation in a suitable building. The rental on this new property roughly equalled the rental income I received from my own. Thus one would think one would have been allowed to offset the other, leaving me in a financially neutral position vis-a-vis before I lost my leg.
The imposition of tax on rental income meant that I was worse off by the amount of the tax. It amounted effectively to treating my disability as a benefit in kind. This was surely an anomalous situation as people like me were hardly the intended target of this tax. Yet when I pointed out this anomaly to the Minister for Finance and the Revenue Commissioners and asked them for a ex gratia refund pending the amendment of the legislation, they did not want to know.
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Thus this State, through the Revenue Commissioners, availed itself of money from me to which it was not morally entitled and to which it would not have had access had I not suffered a life-changing disability.
It is not only common sense but compassion that is missing from the current system. – Yours, etc,
SEAN O’DONNELL,
Ardee,
Co Louth.