Property tax...This will be popular

NewDubliner

jimmmy wrote: »

Some are owned by ordinary joes who cannot sell them as the market in certain areas around the country has crashed....they cannot be sold even at 40% or 50% off....

That's a pity. They were suckered by property developers in the hope of big capital appreciation and in, some cases, the hope of cashing in on 'decentralisation'. They then planned to pay for their investments and fund their pensions by by exploiting their tenants. What a pity.

jimmmy wrote: »

what if someone gets a job transfer ?

Home ownership is a big impediment to labour mobility.

jimmmy wrote: »

Also many were bought - with 90% loans ...as their pension. The govt encouraged them to do this.

Proof? I didn't see any advertising by the government adivising people to bet their pensions on Leitrim.

jimmmy wrote: »

You cannot call these people "speculators", "not ordinary joes"etc

Ordinary joes put their money in risk-free bonds. Speculators put their money on blind bets. If the houses are empty, it's proof that they were a risky investment. Speculators take risks.

mikedublin

The biggest problem with a property tax is that it doesn't take any account of people's ability to pay or changes in their financial circumstances. Anyone who bought in the mid to late 90's and is in a house with a high paper value, but now has a lower waged job is going to face serious problems.
And with the recession anyone can now lose their well paid job and have to accecpt much lower paid jobs. You might find you can just about scrape by and pay the mortgage and keep food on the table for your family but a property tax will put a lot of families "over the edge" and create situations where struggling people are made homeless.

NewDubliner

mikedublin wrote: »

Anyone who bought in the mid to late 90's and is in a house with a high paper value, but now has a lower waged job is going to face serious problems.

That's why I think it needs to relate to house size, occupancy and the cost of servicing it. So, people who bought cheap houses down the country should bear the full economic cost of providing roads and other services to them.

There's an opportunity in a property tax to encourage high-density, city-based living. This will help make us more competitive by reducing transport costs and promoting labour mobility as people decide to live closer to a variety of employment opportunities.

The big losers will be speculators who bought into the wrong, unsustainable, single-industry towns. We're going to have to encourage economically viable, cost-effective lifestyle choices if we're going to become competiitive.

bobbbb

I dont like the way they are getting rid of the rental tax relief either.

Thats just another stealth property tax, but on renters.

Very unfair. Thats worth about €500 or so to us a year back from our rent.

gurramok

bobbbb wrote: »

I dont like the way they are getting rid of the rental tax relief either.

Thats just another stealth property tax, but on renters.

Very unfair. Thats worth about €500 or so to us a year back from our rent.

Scrap that rental relief, no need for it.

Its just another long line of property based incentives which are not needed in a chronically oversupplied market.

blast05

I have a holiday home in Mayo.
Built on family land i was given.
I have scrimped and save for a decade to pay for it having driven 10 year old plus cars while all my work colleagues drove far better, having taken only 1 holiday outside my honeymoon over the last 10 years while colleagues went on the sun and ski holiday.
We put 2 SSIAs into it and every share i received as a work bonus.
This is our luxury item and our nirvana is heading down there for a weekend by the sea.
I have my own private well, my own private effluent treatment system, even have a top of the range wood chip burner and have insulated to the nth degree for those concerned with the carbon footprint. I have paid a €1700 ESB connection charge when it only took a couple of hours work and a length of cable. All in all the property has not cost the county council a single cent despite me contributing a development levy of €1500.
The construction of the house involved employment of local labourers and suppliers, keeping them and money in the small local rural economy.

If i had pissed all my money away on 3 top foreign holidays per year instead of investing my money in the Irish economy then i wouldn't now be in a position of having a pending property tax hanging over my head.

The house is a luxury item so if we are going down that path then why not tax boats on the Shannon, vintage cars (no car tax needed), private art collections, jewellery worth over say 10 grand, etc etc etc

Could anyone explain to me why i should be subject to a property tax on my luxury item

bobbbb

blast05 wrote: »

I have a holiday home in Mayo.
Built on family land i was given.
I have scrimped and save for a decade to pay for it having driven 10 year old plus cars while all my work colleagues drove far better, having taken only 1 holiday outside my honeymoon over the last 10 years while colleagues went on the sun and ski holiday.
We put 2 SSIAs into it and every share i received as a work bonus.
This is our luxury item and our nirvana is heading down there for a weekend by the sea.
I have my own private well, my own private effluent treatment system, even have a top of the range wood chip burner and have insulated to the nth degree for those concerned with the carbon footprint. I have paid a €1700 ESB connection charge when it only took a couple of hours work and a length of cable. All in all the property has not cost the county council a single cent despite me contributing a development levy of €1500.
The construction of the house involved employment of local labourers and suppliers, keeping them and money in the small local rural economy.

If i had pissed all my money away on 3 top foreign holidays per year instead of investing my money in the Irish economy then i wouldn't now be in a position of having a pending property tax hanging over my head.

The house is a luxury item so if we are going down that path then why not tax boats on the Shannon, vintage cars (no car tax needed), private art collections, jewellery worth over say 10 grand, etc etc etc

Could anyone explain to me why i should be subject to a property tax on my luxury item

Unfortunately its just not cool anymore to actually have anything. Its only cool to have no house, no money from your job (after tax) and no holidays.
People dont seems to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their work anymore. Ireland has just become a pain to live in. No incentive anymore to earn any more and certainly no incentive to buy property with a property tax hanging over you if you buy. There is even no incentive to save with more taxes on that. Might as well emigrate.

We were seriously looking at buying a house here, but there is just no stability regarding taxes that may be heaped on you om a failing governments whim.

We've decided we're going to the UK after the summer after the wife is finished her current contract. At least you know where you stand there with taxes etc. Thats over €90,000 a year that we pay in income tax beween us going to another country now. Well done Brian Lenihan. You could have kept that, and the tax from the many who will be doing the same as us.

They should have had enough of a levy right across the board which would have cleared the deficit over a few years. They should have let people know exactly where they stand. Not have them not knowing what other taxes are coming. Thats worse than deflation for making people not spend. Its a monumental cock-up.

People would be happy to pay more tax if they knew that was it, but look whats happened now.

Serenity Now!

jimmmy wrote: »

Also many were bought - with 90% loans ...as their pension. The govt encouraged them to do this. You cannot call these people "speculators", "not ordinary joes"etc

If they're a second property, they're bought as an investment and would only be sold in profit by...speculators

mikedublin

If enough people simply refuse to pay this new tax, it would cause the government to think again. All the other tax rises / income levies/ pension levies they have brought in have been deducted at source, so regardless of how unpopular they were, there was nothing people could do about them.
This will be different, as they will need people to pay the bills when they come in the door, and if people refuse (because they simply don't have that kind of money to spare), then it can be beaten.
A massive "Can't Pay Won't Pay" campaign is the one way that ordinary working class people can stick two fingers up at this rotten to the core government.

Serenity Now!

blast05 wrote: »

I have a holiday home in Mayo.
Built on family land i was given

You inherited the land's propensity to be taxed then. Doesn't matter if it was given or not.

Akrasia

Hookey wrote: »

You keep on talking about it like its a tax on the property; its not; its a tax on occupancy; negative equity has nothing to do with it. Everywhere else in Europe with this kind of tax (e.g. everywhere else in Europe!) would charge a fee based on location, size of house, number of occupants, usually with discounts for single occupiers, and discounts for empty houses. I'd take your bet and say this will happen. From a government POV its a no-brainer.

in the current situation where we need to get property prices down before our economy can even begin to recover, and where there are hundreds of thousands of empty houses out there, there is no way there should be a discount for empty properties.

The government should target this sector first because the property specuvestors are directly responsible for the crisis and it is reasonable to target them to pay for the mess that they caused.

It is imperative that we bring prices back to realistic levels and a very good way of doing this would be a property tax that penalises empty houses.

The benefits of that are as follows

1. It will drive down rents
2. It will force landlords to register their properties as for rent and pay tax on their rental income.
3. It will drive down property prices as people can no longer afford to leave their property empty hoping to wait out the recession.(this is a necessary and good thing we can't recover if the state is focused on protecting people who made terrible decisions from negative equity)

There should also be legislation introduced to make it a criminal offence to leave half completed houses and estates all over the place and impose fines on the directors of the companies who are currently walking away from their commitments and hiding behind their limited liability companies.

jimmmy

mikedublin wrote: »

This will be different, as they will need people to pay the bills when they come in the door, and if people refuse (because they simply don't have that kind of money to spare), then it can be beaten.
A massive "Can't Pay Won't Pay" campaign is the one way that ordinary working class people can stick two fingers up at this rotten to the core government.

Common sense at last. Those who have already paid stamp duty, taxes on acquiring the property etc, and are in negative equity, have had enough. The government cannot impose further taxes on liabilities.
If it wants to balance its budget, it should look at its spending, just as any household or business with a budget deficit would do. Government spending increased from 36 billion in 2003 to 63 billion and increasing this year.

Akrasia

jimmmy wrote: »

Some are owned by ordinary joes who cannot sell them as the market in certain areas around the country has crashed....they cannot be sold even at 40% or 50% off....what if someone gets a job transfer ?

Why does the ordinary joe have more than one house?
They should not have bought a new house until they sold their old one. Its their own fault, they made a terrible decision and that terrible decision has had terrible consequences for the rest of society. They could sell their house if they reduced the price enough, or they could rent it out if they set the rent at an appropriate level. The fact that so many people are still in denial and think they can wait out the recession is a major stumbling block to our recovery. Rent prices for a 3 or 4 bed house in dublin should not be 1500 per month. it should be half that. Property owners are imposing an unfair burden on renters because of their own stupid decision to take out excessive loans to buy houses at inflated prices. Government policy should be aimed at correcting this.

Also many were bought - with 90% loans ...as their pension. The govt encouraged them to do this. You cannot call these people "speculators", "not ordinary joes"etc

Yeah I can, they were speculating on assets in the hope that they would increase in value, it was a form of gambling and they lost. They wanted money for nothing. we should not bail them out.

rubbish. It was the taxes ( which your "speculators" paid lol ) which inflated public sector spending from 36 billion in 03 to 63 billion + spending today. Cut public spending back , as Eddie Hobbs, George Lee etc says.

the taxes were a part of the price of the house. If there were no taxes, they would have paid that money to a developer instead and that would have made the bubble even worse (higher supernormal profits, more new entrants to the market, more building = a much larger overhang in the already massively oversupplied market and further to fall after the inevitable crash)
These people made a decision to purchase a house with full knowledge of all the costs, they made that decision because of greed, money for nothing in an inflating housing market)

Akrasia

blast05 wrote: »

I have a holiday home in Mayo.
Built on family land i was given.
I have scrimped and save for a decade to pay for it having driven 10 year old plus cars while all my work colleagues drove far better, having taken only 1 holiday outside my honeymoon over the last 10 years while colleagues went on the sun and ski holiday.
We put 2 SSIAs into it and every share i received as a work bonus.
This is our luxury item and our nirvana is heading down there for a weekend by the sea.
I have my own private well, my own private effluent treatment system, even have a top of the range wood chip burner and have insulated to the nth degree for those concerned with the carbon footprint. I have paid a €1700 ESB connection charge when it only took a couple of hours work and a length of cable. All in all the property has not cost the county council a single cent despite me contributing a development levy of €1500.
The construction of the house involved employment of local labourers and suppliers, keeping them and money in the small local rural economy.

If i had pissed all my money away on 3 top foreign holidays per year instead of investing my money in the Irish economy then i wouldn't now be in a position of having a pending property tax hanging over my head.

The house is a luxury item so if we are going down that path then why not tax boats on the Shannon, vintage cars (no car tax needed), private art collections, jewellery worth over say 10 grand, etc etc etc

Could anyone explain to me why i should be subject to a property tax on my luxury item

Because there is a social cost to empty properties and a progressive taxation system should target those who can most afford to pay.

jimmmy

Akrasia wrote: »

Why does the ordinary joe have more than one house?

Usually its not them its the bank or building society which owns it.

If nobody owned rental property then there would be no houses or apartments for people to rent. The reason the government got people to invest in the rental market was to provide a plentiful supply of decent quality property for people to rent. It also provided a lot of money - tens of billions- for the govt in the form of stamp duty, vat, income tax etc

Maybe you you prefer to see an economy where the "ordinary joe" cannot or does not have more than one house ( often with bank loans etc ). Maybe you should look at the old USSR for example.

blast05

You inherited the land's propensity to be taxed then. Doesn't matter if it was given or not.

The lands propensity to be taxed ????? What the blazes is that about. If i inherited it and built nothing on it there would have been no tax so why should there be a tax on it after i invested a coupleof hundred grand into the local economy ?

Because there is a social cost to empty properties and a progressive taxation system should target those who can most afford to pay.

What is the social cost in my case ? There was a social benefit in that about 3 man years worth of work was provided in a small rural economy with a huge unemployment problem even at the height of the celtic tiger.... and now i will get penalised cos of this .... and i can't afford a property tax
If i built a big monstrosity of a cattle shed (which would only be occupied for 4 months a year - maybe theres a social cost there to the animals) there would have been no tax to be paid

Darragh29

10000maniacs wrote: »

At last, somebody who gets it.;)
Every penny you put into your property, you have already paid 40%+ tax/levies on this money. Then you are hit for stamp duty which will in some cases bring this above the 50%. Then you will be hit with mortgage interest.
Then you will be hit with management charge if you have an apartment.
Then in December you will be hit with property tax in the budget. Getting worried?

These WASTER TD FAT CATS need to get their own house down on Kildare Street in order before they start putting a tax on mine. The idea that these guys are still claiming unvouched expenses is nothing less than an INSANITY. Those military helicopters up in Baldonnel that seem to be used for absolutely f*ck all purpose, other than to provide a private air taxi service for ministers Cullen & Dempsey should be sold IMMEDIATELY.

If I got a tax audit and the inspector found out that I was claiming expenses that I didn't have receipts for, I'd be fined and could be put out of business, just for not having receipts for expenses I might have claimed! I'd be served with a tax demand, including the original tax due, fines, penalties and interest and I'd be given 28 days to pay or else I'd have a Revenue Sheriff at my door or I'd have a court appearance.

Bring in a property tax at your peril Cowen!

Serenity Now!

jimmmy wrote: »

Usually its not them its the bank or building society which owns it.

If nobody owned rental property then there would be no houses or apartments for people to rent. The reason the government got people to invest in the rental market was to provide a plentiful supply of decent quality property for people to rent. It also provided a lot of money - tens of billions- for the govt in the form of stamp duty, vat, income tax etc

Maybe you you prefer to see an economy where the "ordinary joe" cannot or does not have more than one house ( often with bank loans etc ). Maybe you should look at the old USSR for example.

This point being made is that someone who can afford to bung out two or more mortgages is not an "Ordinary Joe".

Serenity Now!

blast05 wrote: »

The lands propensity to be taxed ????? What the blazes is that about. If i inherited it and built nothing on it there would have been no tax so why should there be a tax on it after i invested a coupleof hundred grand into the local economy ?

Did you pay an inheritance tax on the land? If you did then you could probably argue a case. If you didn't then you'll be coughing up should a property tax be introduced.

You didn't invest anything into the local economy by the way. You made avail of local services, paid for them then got what you wanted. Thats not an investment in the community. Its an investment for you alone.

gurramok

bobbbb wrote: »

We've decided we're going to the UK after the summer after the wife is finished her current contract. At least you know where you stand there with taxes etc. Thats over €90,000 a year that we pay in income tax beween us going to another country now. Well done Brian Lenihan. You could have kept that, and the tax from the many who will be doing the same as us.
.

Be prepared to pay property tax on any house you will have over there. Its a bummer ain't it?

Darragh29

Serenity Now! wrote: »

This point being made is that someone who can afford to bung out two or more mortgages is not an "Ordinary Joe".

Everyone now is scrambing to be an "Ordinary Joe". A lot of the people who are now shouting and roaring that they are an "Ordinary Joe", in fact have been spending the last ten years distuinguishing themselves from "Ordinary Joe", whether it was buying the investment property in Alacante or the BMW X5 from Maxwell Motors. Ordinary Joe has one house, because that's all he needed and he wasn't a selfish bast*rd that had to buy fancy cars and more houses than he needed to live in. All this Celtic Tiger bullsh*t was based on nothing other than a deeply ingrained insecurity that exists within the Irish mindset.

bobbbb

gurramok wrote: »

Be prepared to pay property tax on any house you will have over there. Its a bummer ain't it?

You're stalking me arent you. sad.

Im happy to pay property tax if i own property wherever i am.
The reason i may move is to have my young one go to a proper school thats not falling apart and to know exactly how much tax i have to pay every year so i can plan financially for the future. Not the jumping all over the place tax system that is developing here now.

bobbbb

Darragh29 wrote: »

Everyone now is scrambing to be an "Ordinary Joe". A lot of the people who are now shouting and roaring that they are an "Ordinary Joe", in fact have been spending the last ten years distuinguishing themselves from "Ordinary Joe", whether it was buying the investment property in Alacante or the BMW X5 from Maxwell Motors. Ordinary Joe has one house, because that's all he needed and he wasn't a selfish bast*rd that had to buy fancy cars and more houses than he needed to live in. All this Celtic Tiger bullsh*t was based on nothing other than a deeply ingrained insecurity that exists within the Irish mindset.

There is no such thing as an ordinary Joe. I thought we all had different circumstances and different needs and achievements in our lives.

Some have houses, some dont.
Some took jobs in the public sector, some in the private sector.
We all earn as much as we possibly can manage to earn and spend it how we want.

I think most of what we have in Ireland now is just plain begrudgery. People trying to blame others for the problems we all contributed to.

I didnt see anyone running and giving back the tax breaks we got in PAYE over the last 10 years.

No everyone took what was given to them happily and are now running around trying to blame anyone with themselves.

gurramok

bobbbb wrote: »

You're stalking me arent you. sad.

Im happy to pay property tax if i own property wherever i am.
The reason i may move is to have my young one go to a proper school thats not falling apart and to know exactly how much tax i have to pay every year so i can plan financially for the future. Not the jumping all over the place tax system that is developing here now.

No, i'm not stalking you.

Its damn obvious there will be more taxes, and if you have the ability to pay your fair way, you and and me will.

You said the following:

No incentive anymore to earn any more and certainly no incentive to buy property with a property tax hanging over you if you buy

You have a qualm with property tax yet you plan to emigrate to a country that has a harsh property tax?!:rolleyes:

Akrasia

jimmmy wrote: »

Usually its not them its the bank or building society which owns it.

If nobody owned rental property then there would be no houses or apartments for people to rent. The reason the government got people to invest in the rental market was to provide a plentiful supply of decent quality property for people to rent. It also provided a lot of money - tens of billions- for the govt in the form of stamp duty, vat, income tax etc

Maybe you you prefer to see an economy where the "ordinary joe" cannot or does not have more than one house ( often with bank loans etc ). Maybe you should look at the old USSR for example.

I have said repeatedly on this thread that I think a property tax should target empty properties first and I gave the reasons for that.

next it should target investment properties before the state starts going after people's principle private residence.

If average joe is renting out his second property then he/she is covering his mortgage (or a significant portion of it)

If average joe is leaving the house empty because he is hoping that prices will pick up and he can sell it for a profit then he should be taxed the sh1t out of until he cops on and either rents the place out or sells it at the market rate to someone who will put it to use.

This would drive property prices and rents downwards and that is a good thing

jimmmy

Serenity Now! wrote: »

This point being made is that someone who can afford to bung out two or more mortgages is not an "Ordinary Joe".

Some people did take out a 90% mortgage on an investment property because that was intended to be their pension. They may already have a 90 % or 100% mortgage on their own residence...or they may even be renting their own accomodation to live in. Such people are ordinary Joes...I know some people like that who make less than the public sector average of 966 p.w. Do not forget if ye do not have a fat public sector pension to look forward to, or ye want to provide for yer kids education, some people want to save....and investing in a buy to let apartment was encouraged by the govt, and it had the added social benefit of increasing the amount of rental property in the country.....plus it generated a lot of money for the govt

bobbbb

gurramok wrote: »

You have a qualm with property tax yet you plan to emigrate to a country that has a harsh property tax?!:rolleyes:

The UK does not have a "harsh" property tax. They have a fair property tax. Look it up.

jimmmy

Given their stamp duty rates are a lot less than Ireland. The govt here collected many billions through the 9% stamp duty rate.....we already have a high property tax here.

gurramok

bobbbb wrote: »

The UK does not have a "harsh" property tax. They have a fair property tax. Look it up.

They do pay up to €1,000stg on the average gaff.

Now, the govt might do the same here, would you pay it?

NewDubliner

jimmmy wrote: »

Some people did take out a 90% mortgage on an investment property because that was intended to be their pension

Let me get this right, 'ordinary joe' bought the property with money he didn't have and intended to pay for it by exploiting the tenant's earnings? The tenants pay for the property but 'ordinary joe' gets to own it?

That's a 'money for nothing scheme'.