Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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13. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to review the Thornhill report on property tax (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27541/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Under the LPT legislation the initial valuation of a property on 1st May 2013 was valid until 31 October 2016, and would not have been affected by any increase or decrease in property prices or other changes, including repairs or improvements made, during this period. The next valuation date would have fallen on 1st November 2016. During the passage of the Finance Bill in 2014 I gave a firm commitment that my Department would examine the LPT and any impacts on LPT liabilities due to increasing property prices.

Accordingly, I asked Dr. Don Thornhill to conduct a review to consider and make recommendations on the operation of the Local Property Tax, in particular, any impacts on LPT liabilities due to property price developments.

Dr. Thornhill made a number of recommendations in his report on his review of the Local Property Tax. His central recommendation is for a revised system whereby a minimum level of LPT revenues in each local authority area would be determined by Government, ideally having regard to the apportionment between local authority areas of the historic yield. This in turn would allow for the estimation of LPT rates for each local authority area and the application of these by taxpayers and Revenue. Local authorities could adjust this rate upwards by a factor of up to 15%. This new system was recommended by Dr. Thornhill with a possible interim deferral of the next valuation date until November 2018 or November 2019.

In my Budget 2016 statement, I announced that I would be proposing to Government that the revaluation date for the LPT be postponed from 2016 to 2019. This postponement means that home owners will not be faced with significant increases in their LPT in 2017 as a result of increased property values. The postponement also gave sufficient time for the other recommendations in Dr. Thornhill's report to be considered. The Finance (Local Property Tax) (Amendment) Act 2015 gives effect to the postponement of the revaluation date of residential property for LPT purposes, and also to two of the recommendations in Dr. Thornhill's report, involving LPT relief for properties affected by pyrite and relief for properties occupied by persons with disabilities (recommendations numbers 11 and 12 respectively).  

My Department will be considering issues relating to the implementation of other recommendations in the Report in due course in line with the 2019 timeline. I also note that the Programme for a Partnership Government provides for the preparation of a report by mid-2017 for Government and for the Oireachtas, on potential measures to boost local government leadership and accountability.