Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Revenue will send out a return to every householder. Much of what I described related to Revenue putting together a register of homeowners as that is not readily available. It will involve putting together a complete inventory of homeowners in Ireland, not valuing the properties just identifying the owners because the obligation to pay is on the owners. If one goes to anybody in the estate and valuation business, the auctioneering business, and asks them to sell a house, they will give one an indication of value very quickly and put an indicative price on the house. They may be right or wrong but the same system can apply if a homeowner wants to bring in a valuer. If the process is honestly approached, Revenue will accept that at face value. If somebody does not want to get a valuation and simply takes the norm for the area, as indicated by the Revenue, one does not have to precisely value one's house, all one has to do is to indicate the value is somewhere within a €50,000 band. If one thinks the value is between €150,000 and €200,000, one would put an X in that box and the house will be taxed at 0.175%, the midpoint. If one has built an extension at a cost of say €7,500 and one's neighbours say that their houses are valued between €150,000 and €200,000, the normal thing would be for one to value one's house in the next band and indicate it is worth between €200,000 and €250,000 and one would put an X in the box opposite that band and the tax will apply at 0.225%. One can create a problem for every solution but this can be done if there is a willingness to do this. One is not being asked to precisely value the house. Everybody knows that price values have gone down. The Revenue will give a good deal of information to assist people to simply fill out the form and will give an indicative value but it will not value houses for tax purposes. It is a self-assessment system and it is up to the homeowner returning the form to indicate what he or she thinks is the value of the house. If the homeowner proceeds in an honest fashion, according to the Revenue customer charter, that will be accepted. The value will hold for three years until there is a revaluation in November 2016.

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