Local Councillor, Cormac Devlin has said that there is genuine concern and anxiety about the letters being received from the Revenue Commissioners in relation to their online calculator for self assessment purposes.
Commenting on the commencement of Revenue’s collection of the new Local Property Tax Councillor Cormac Devlin said:
“The new property tax was rushed through the Oireachtas by Fine Gael and Labour with scant regard for how Revenue would implement such a complicated system. Now we see that the basis for the valuation-formula being used is flawed, unfair and is causing further confusion amongst the public at large.
The use of “electoral districts” as a key basis for the tax-bands leaves similar houses on different sides of the same road with
significantly different values. Similarly in large districts, for example "Killiney South, the formula has had the effect of reducing values on properties on the Killiney Hill Road side, while unreasonably increasing them on the Loughlinstown side. Other examples exist where houses along Vico Road are cheaper than some of those located in the Salthill-Monkstown area. Equally, in Mounttown, houses on different sides of the same road are valued differently".
More accurate valuations would have been obtained if the census sectoral areas formed the basis of Revenue's property valuation. It is also astonishing that key indicators of value like the square footage of a property or indeed how many bedrooms it has have been ignored.
"If the public are to have confidence in the Local Property Tax it must be seen to be fair. The Government must move immediately to correct the shortcomings in the valuation formula to ensure the system is fair and transparent concluded" Cllr. Devlin
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