Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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48. To ask the Minister for Finance the action that has been taken against those who did not pay the household charge; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23449/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by Revenue that with effect from 1 July 2013, Section 156 of the Finance (Local Property Tax) Act 2012 (as amended) converted Household Charge (HHC) to Local Property Tax (LPT), increased all outstanding liabilities to €200 and made Revenue responsible for collection of those outstanding amounts. As part of the handover of responsibility, Revenue received the HHC database from the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) and carried out a comprehensive data matching exercise with its own LPT Property Register. The data matching exercise produced a list of properties in respect of which the HHC did not appear to be paid.

Once the 'unpaid' cases were identified, Revenue announced a compliance campaign including a six week window to 31 March to allow people get both their HHC and LPT affairs in order. The six week window included a commitment that interest and penalties would not be applied against any person who met their obligations during that timeframe. The window and the consequences of continued non-compliance were very extensively advertised on both national and local media outlets and many people availed of the opportunity to bring their property tax affairs up to date.

On 17 April 2014, Revenue began writing to the owners of approximately 274,000 properties who did not bring their affairs up to date during the six week window. The notices clearly warned of the consequences of continued non-compliance and outlined the steps that needed to be taken in regard to making payment or updating the records where no payment was due on foot of exemptions/waivers. Since assuming responsibility for HHC Revenue has received payments in respect 112,000 properties, of which 102,000 were received since the compliance programme started. Revenue has also received in excess of 70,000 items of correspondence since the compliance programme started, of which approximately 30,000 remain to be answered.

Revenue expects to have the correspondence backlog cleared in the next few weeks and be in a position to commence debt recovery action against property owners who have still not paid at that point. The actions to be deployed will include mandatory deduction from employment income for PAYE workers, or from occupational pensions or certain Government payments where appropriate. Actions applicable in the case of self-assessed taxpayers, some of which have already been deployed, include withholding of Tax Clearance certification, surcharges on Income Tax, Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax returns and withholding/offset of any other tax refunds. Revenue will also deploy its standard enforcement options including referral to a Sheriff or Solicitor for collection or Attachment where it is appropriate to do so. Interest on late payment, at a rate of 0.0219% per day, may also be included in any enforcement action, which will be calculated from the date the tax was due (1 July 2013 for HHC) up to the date payment is made.  Where any unpaid HHC/LPT attaches to a property, a person will not be able to sell or transfer it without paying the liability including any interest and penalties that may be due.

Finally, Revenue has confirmed to me that there is still time for property owners to pay any outstanding HHC/LPT liabilities in advance of debt collection/enforcement activity starting and I would strongly advise property owners to avail of the opportunity thereby avoiding further unnecessary expense through costly enforcement charges.