A chara, – Peter Molloy’s simplistic analysis of the property tax (December 22nd) misses one important point. People need a home to live in, it is a necessity. It is not comparable to a television or a car.
We already have a dramatic increase in homelessness in Ireland, which is now reaching crisis point due to the economic crisis on the one hand, and a disastrous change in governmental policy towards homelessness, on the other.
Now we have the happy clappers cheering the introduction of the household tax. Are these people living in the real world? Take a walk through the streets of Dublin city any night and see how many are already sleeping rough. Many of these homeless people were previously employed and had homes of their own. There seems to be a denial in some quarters that the crisis here has already had a disastrous, far-reaching, life- changing effect on so many here. The last thing we need is a tax on our homes, one which we all know will increase annually.
It is not simply “populist” for our elected TDs to refuse to pay this tax. The TDs’ action indicates an appreciation of the real problems families are facing. This country does not need a household tax. I support the TDs and likewise I will not be paying the household tax. – Is mise,
EF FANNING,
Whitehall Road,
Churchtown,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – The level of hypocrisy regarding who is to blame for this country’s bankruptcy is breath-taking.
Mick Wallace TD (December 22nd) proclaims that the debts “[were] imposed on us by our masters in Europe”.
In his letter on the same day Brendan O’Donoghue blames “the German strategy . . . to get the peripheral states into so much debt that they lose their economic independence”. Germany did this by “permitting its financial institutions to lend billions of euros to the Irish”.
According to this school of thought the fact that this country is bankrupt has nothing to do with decisions made by the most powerful people in this country.
Our government, our banks, Mick Wallace’s building industry had nothing to do with the borrowing? Imagine the outrage there would have been if Germany refused to lend to this country when the heads of our most important institutions went looking for loans. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Joe Hayden (December 21st) makes a fair point. Here in the North the same lopsided system also applies, property valuation to raise revenue. The system seems to be based on what the well-heeled thought up and are determined to maintain.
Two questions. 1. What has the property value to do with the reason for collecting local or national taxes? 2. If a household contains adults owning cars, they will each be required to pay car/road tax. In the same way the same persons will receive income tax demands and so on.
However, the present system requires one person to pay the property tax for the entire household. That person could have the lowest income in that household and presumably is expected to be the tax collector for all appropriate residents.
Relating tax take-up to income rather than bricks and mortar, would ensure a better and equitable imposition of revenue collection and would probably have no adverse effect on the Minister for Finance. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The notion that tax falls on anything other than income is a lie. From where do these delusional or mendacious politicians think that people will conjure the money to pay these proposed property taxes?
Do they imagine residential property to be a storage place for legal tender from which hundreds and thousands of euro can be magically produced? Property taxes are either paid out of immediate income, or from the proceeds of the sale of property. Property taxes will force people to have to sell their homes into a severely deflated market.
Incidentally, the proceeds or sale represent monies that have already been heavily taxed, given that most, if not all properties exposed to this risk in Ireland are in negative equity. This will force people to accept ruinously huge losses unnecessarily, just to create a fig-leaf that the State is not increasing income taxes.
Apart from anything else, establishing a property tax is a dangerous precedent, as it declares that the government owns our homes, and that there is no such thing as private property. We are not slaves, and our Constitution protects private ownership of property.
Regardless of what the IMF recommends, the European Commission demands, or our Commission on Taxation declares, we should not accept this blatant attack on our already beleaguered homes. The fact that many other countries have property taxes is immaterial. We needn’t always assume that elsewhere is better.
Enda Kenny has been quoted as having said in 1994 that “It is morally wrong, unjust, and unfair, to tax a person’s home”. What has changed? If such a tax was morally wrong, unjust, and unfair in 1994, surely it is equally so now.
If the State needs more money, then either increase the Universal “Social” Charge (a tax) or increase income tax for a period. To do anything other than this is a rank betrayal. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – So the Government has finally accepted that the household charge is deeply unpopular and grossly unfair. Why, therefore, is it insisting on imposing it for a year or so? A Government that threatens to deduct the charge from social welfare payments is a Government afraid to be seen jailing its political adversaries.
Is it not time for the Labour Party to stand firm and demand that there be no household charge in 2012 but rather wait until joined-up government is in place? For that matter, how did it let things get to this sorry state? This is not what I voted for and should Fine Gael continue to be unwilling to accept reality, I call upon the Labour Party to take the only honourable option left and remove itself from this coalition before it too makes itself (yet again) unelectable. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – You report (Front page, December 21st) that the Commission on Taxation has recommended a system of valuation banding for property taxes up to a valuation of €1.5 million and thereafter a direct percentage tax. The fixing of bands at €150,000 intervals would seem to be grossly unfair to middle income citizens who may be caught at the margin of a tax band. Why can’t they be treated in the same manner as those in the more expensive houses and pay at the direct percentage rate? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – If the indicated charges in “Government decides to bring forward property tax” (December 21st) are given approval, our Government will have finally drawn that last straw from our beleaguered society.
Perhaps it might be prudent to highlight to our Government that “You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it”, as this logic appears absent.
We are getting that little bit closer to the end of our once great little nation. ¡El tiempo de aprender español! – Yours, etc,