Sir, – The Government is not proposing a tax on property, but merely a tax on homes. Surely, the simple solution to this fiasco is to impose a higher VAT rate on domestic electricity, gas and heating oil? Such a tax would roughly relate to home size and occupation, with the added bonus of encouraging fuel economy and reduction in greenhouse gases. It would also create an incentive for higher insulation, and a switch to solar panels, etc, without the need for grants.
Moreover it would render entirely unnecessary the creation of a vast new public sector bureaucracy to administer both valuation of homes and collection of taxes.
This idea runs counter to the ingrained belief in Irish governments that national prosperity can be achieved by creating armies of bureaucrats to inspect farms, septic tanks, houses, etc, all to be paid for by imposing ever-higher taxes on the private sector, while economic potential is withering as a generation of our expensively educated youth flee the country to escape repayment of bankers’ international debts and the economics of a mad-house. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Other countries have such a charge but it differs from here in that their citizens are adequately informed as to how the money they pay is spent.
Two council workers with shovels, dead-heading weeds in my local park and scooping them into the bucket of a hired JCB shadowing the work party helped me appreciate what little effect my €250 payment had. If I had shovelled in 10 times that amount the results would have been the same.
I can appreciate the underlying reasons for the rushed-through nature of this charge, but I worry that if payment is made or continues to be made with the present lack of accountability it can only demonstrate an acceptance on our part of the way things are to be in the future. – XXXyours, etc,
Sir, – Enda Kenny said that because Knockranny House Hotel had its best August ever people should be able to pay the proposed household tax – even those who had only €100 a month left over (Home News, September 11th). I presume he paid his own bill, along with the rest of his entourage! Of such things dreams are made of. – Yours, etc,