New taxes on way to plug €5bn council debt

tritium

The most annoying thing is that property tax is being presented by experts as an inevitable step without reasoned debate. There are other approaches that would generate large sums for the exchequer that are being ignored. I realise that property tax would generate a large sum, but consider some ways of making part of that figure up before implementing a property tax:

Consider for example a speculation tax: A property tax applied only to investment propreties. This would in effect penalise a group that saw their assests rise in value dramatically during the boom, and which in many cases is still quids in. It would also penalise higher level of speculation more, i.e. those who benefitted from Tax breaks such as section 23. By applying it to all second homes and beyond it acts as a catch all. With rental prices still falling it would also act as a partial floor and possibly help add stability to the market.

As the current rumours go, any property tax will be hugely skewd against middle class urban dwellers. With the greatest of respect to other sectors of society, this group represents the well to which the Government goes to time and again to tap for funding, and one of the groups that benefits least from Government largesse in good times.

As I said before, if this goes ahead I'm marching, please join me for a day out If they thought the over 70's were bad, they haven't seen anything yet!