Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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549. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the purpose of the fees in respect of two or more properties liable in 2013 for payment of non-principal private residence and local property tax; if he will explain the use to which the fees collected will be used; the person or agency which is responsible for collection of the fees; his views on whether the agencies collecting the fees are sharing personal information on citizens and whether this is a breach of data protection; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26915/13]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The Non-Principal Private Residence (NPPR) Charge, which is a matter for the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, is an annual charge of €200 introduced by the Local Government (Charges) Act 2009, as amended by the Local Government (Household Charge) Act 2011. It applies to a residential property which is not used as the owner’s sole or main residence, with limited exemptions.The Local Property Tax (LPT) is payable in respect of all residential properties, subject to certain exemptions. It is administered by the Revenue Commissioners. Liability for the LPT arises where a person owns a residential property on the liability date which is 1 May 2013 for the year 2013 and, for subsequent years, 1 November in the preceding year (that is, the liability date for 2014 is 1 November 2013). The tax will be based on the chargeable value (market value) of a residential property on the valuation date. The inter-Departmental Group chaired by Dr Don Thornhill on the design of a property tax (the “Thornhill Group”) recommended that the NPPR should be absorbed into the LPT as a separate supplemental tax, in addition to the LPT at the standard level applying to non-principal private residences. The Government did not accept this recommendation. The NPPR Charge will be collected in 2013, when a half-year LPT applies, but will be discontinued thereafter. The Government decided to extend the NPPR Charge into 2013 to ensure as smooth a transition as possible for local authorities pending the introduction of the full LPT. As the Government had decided that the NPPR Charge would only apply for one further year, it made sense for the NPPR Charge and the LPT to be administered separately.

As set out in the Local Government (Charges) Act 2009, as amended, liability to pay the NPPR is determined on the basis of ownership of the property in question on the "liability date", which is 31 March for 2013. The LPT does not come into effect until 1 July 2013.

The Household Charge and the NPPR charge co-existed in 2012 and certain properties would have been liable to both charges.