Results 14,481-14,500 of 32,569 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes. My key consideration in all of this, which is why I made the decision that I did, is that if anybody faces an increase it should be modest and affordable.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I have explained that I see that coming about as a result of new homes coming into the local property tax, LPT, base as they are built.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: We considered it but we did not find a way of doing it that would be fair to all. It goes back to the point I made to Deputy Breathnach. In order to have a taxable liability we need a way of pricing the asset. We would then face the challenge of trying to assign a market value at 2013 levels to properties that have just been built. We were not able to come up with a way of doing that...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The person who pays the LPT is the property owner. The Deputy does not need me to tell him that. I would be careful about introducing LPT relief for landlords for precisely the reason he has identified. It is very difficult to make a tax policy measure available on the basis of scale, so that a landlord below a certain size can have it and one above that size cannot. This is one of the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I take the Deputy's point. We need to look at how to strengthen the link between the local property tax somebody pays and the local services he or she receives. That is a fair point. To make the Deputy aware I will refer to how the LPT is currently allocated. Of the approximately €500 million raised each year, approximately €400 million is recycled back to local authorities...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy argued that we need to give consideration to ability to pay in terms of the future LPT. I can understand the attraction of that point and why the Deputy feels that way. Legislating for that and changing the LPT to do that would have massive consequences in terms of what this tax would look like in the future and the revenue it could raise. This is one of the issues we need to be...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The reason there would be some who would lose out is because of the movement of property values inside the local authority area. Perhaps the next step would be for my officials to come before the committee and take members through the detail of the model that has yielded that insight. They were due to appear before the committee beforehand but that was not possible for scheduling reasons...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I have not yet said which one of these scenarios we should go for. If I say that I want to maintain the relative yield of the current LPT, the other side of that coin is the reason why I want to do it. If the yield goes down, I know there will be revenue lost in local authorities that will then become an issue for me because the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government will want...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I think that with some work, a combination of scenarios four and five offer a potential way forward on this issue.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Just to be clear, from a process point of view, I will come back before this committee and the Oireachtas later on this year - hopefully, assuming we are all here doing our work - making a recommendation about what to do. If anything, this committee has indicated that there is far more complexity surrounding this issue than might have been apparent initially. The idea that one might be able...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with the four points made by the Deputy. First, he asked if I would publish a schedule to allow committee members, the Oireachtas and the public to see the distributional consequences and what I proposed to do. I will do so. Second, on my commitment to ensuring no local authority would lose out as a result of any change, that is my policy objective. I want to ensure that if...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: -----for those local authorities, as opposed to anything I am suggesting.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: That gap in revenue would have to be filled in some other way.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: With respect, the Deputy cannot point at me and ask how I would deal with a revenue loss, given that he is looking to abolish the tax that generates the revenue in the first place. I will respond to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council's comments on medium-term expenditure by citing the example of public pay. If we were to outline now what we believe increases in public pay will be in 2021,...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: It is true. Sinn Féin wants to abolish the local property tax. It was against water charges and voted against the VAT increase and the increase in the levy on the betting sector. That is Sinn Féin's track record. It was against those proposals and its only idea for raising revenue was to increase taxation on intellectual property in corporation tax policy. That is the very...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: There is always a reason to vote against these measures and the Deputy has taken it at every opportunity.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Those categories are charitable bodies; charitable bodies or public bodies providing special needs accommodation; registered nursing homes; properties that have been vacated because of long-term mental or physical infirmity; the residence of a severely incapacitated person; properties that are fully chargeable to commercial rates; unfinished housing estates; properties where there has been...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The total number of exemptions is 48,728.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The answer is "Yes". At the moment, the tax applies to properties that were levied when we last made changes to this tax. If a property like the one described by Deputy Burton is exempt, so too is a property that was purchased by somebody for €100,000 or €150,000. Those people do not pay the local property tax either.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Local Property Tax Review: Discussion (11 Jun 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I want to finish the point because this cuts both ways. As Deputy Burton is aware, far more properties have been bought at values below the price of penthouse apartments in the IFSC.