Local Property Tax - trying to bill UK residents!

NIMAN

I know the country is broke and all, but surely sending a property tax demand to a Derry resident is taking this all a little far?:eek:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/derry-man-gets-demand-for-157-in-property-tax-from-the-republic-of-ireland-29187699.html

L1011

Only thing I can think happened there is that at some point An Post delivered to him over the border from a misorganised letter that ended up in Letterkenny and sorted out to that district or something, causing his house to be on the An Post Geodirectory. Bit surreal regardless.

They have to send letters to the UK for Irish properties quite a bit so its not like the physical letter would have looked out of place.

RATM

I think it has become clear that Revenue's strategy on this is very much of the 'spray and pray' variety. I'm a tenant and have gotten one, my girlfriend doesn't own property and she has gotten two of them, children have gotten them and now this guy in a totally different jurisdiction.

the_syco

From the article;

It contained my post code of BT48 8PL

As we don't even have postcodes, I view it as a serious f**k-up :pac:

Norwesterner

Are holiday homes exempt from property tax ?
Maybe he has a holiday home in Donegal and registered himself to vote in the 26 counties?

NIMAN

Well it does say

"Mr O’Hagan owns no property in the Republic and says he’s never had any property dealings there".

L1011

Norwesterner wrote: »

Are holiday homes exempt from property tax ?
Maybe he has a holiday home in Donegal and registered himself to vote in the 26 counties?

No, but he's said he doesn't have one anyway.

Ray Palmer

Imagine this, there is a database that 95% correct. It is used to send out letters and the media go barmy over the 5% wrong. Most of the source of bad data is people filling out the forms not the government.

Some may very well have filled it out incorrectly on purpose.

How the hell people expect the data to be 100% correct is a mystery to me. How would you check the data to make it absolutely correct?

Saying the government is incompetent on this basis is like saying you are a failure as human being by losing a sock in the wash.

Zamboni

I don't understand why there is such shock and amusement at discrepancies in government department databases.

Computer systems and databases operated and controlled and managed by civil servants i.e. employees with NO performance management.

What do people expect?
Sh1te in, sh1te out.

Ray Palmer

Zamboni wrote: »

Computer systems and databases operated and controlled and managed by civil servants i.e. employees with NO performance management.

.

Having working in both private and public companies for many years I can assure you blaming the civil servants is misguided. No system relying on data from people can be accurate. It is more the information coming in than the person managing the data.

Private companies have masses of information that is incorrect and not one deals with the information the tax office has.

Civil servants are not terrible at their jobs and they also do have performance management systems. How to gauge the performance in some roles is pretty ridiculous. Don't let that stop your claims though.

Zamboni

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Having working in both private and public companies for many years I can assure you blaming the civil servants is misguided. No system relying on data from people can be accurate. It is more the information coming in than the person managing the data.

Private companies have masses of information that is incorrect and not one deals with the information the tax office has.

Civil servants are not terrible at their jobs and they also do have performance management systems. How to gauge the performance in some roles is pretty ridiculous. Don't let that stop your claims though.

The Dept of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners and the General Registrars Office are attempting to retrospectively integrate their various databases, all of which will require each individual in this state to make themselves present with valid ID at locations such as Gandon House.
This monumental task is necessary due to a distinct lack of forward planning and data management by government departments.
Who else is responsible if not the civil servants that are employed by these departments?

Private companies data is their issue. Not the tax payers.

Ray Palmer

Zamboni wrote: »

The Dept of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners and the General Registrars Office are attempting to retrospectively integrate their various databases, all of which will require each individual in this state to make themselves present with valid ID at locations such as Gandon House.
This monumental task is necessary due to a distinct lack of forward planning and data management by government departments.
Who else is responsible if not the civil servants that are employed by these departments?

Private companies data is their issue. Not the tax payers.

This is simply not true. I would know about it in a lot more detail than you. The privacy laws here don't not allow such data to be integrated in the manner you suggest. The distinct lack of forward planning would be the laws preventing such integration. Certain details have been allowed to be exchanged and it required the law to be changed.
You do know that the databases held by the government would be the oldest and largest in the country? The idea that they would be one day integrated was never planned as nobody could or would be able to plan it. It is like wondering why all recording wasn't digital.:rolleyes:

Civil servant don't really do much coding and don't have open ended budgets. Costs determine what you get provided by a 3rd party. Try to get extra development done without any budget or required specification.

Integrating the data is not massively difficult but if the data is provided wrong that doesn't matter. The data is often provided incorrectly on purpose. Like the case of the children getting the letter not the parents, this has certainly been done intentionally on many records.

The point about private companies was quite simply to point out it isn't unique to civil servants but the nature of data handling. If you ask 3 large companies to integrate their data they would have as many problems nothing unique to civil servants. They wouldn't even have data that size dealing with Irish customers.

Basically I am saying what you said requires an absence of knowledge on the subject and a issue with civil servants. I doubt you have any real world experience of such projects.

Zamboni

Ray Palmer wrote: »

This is simply not true. I would know about it in a lot more detail than you. The privacy laws here don't not allow such data to be integrated in the manner you suggest. The distinct lack of forward planning would be the laws preventing such integration. Certain details have been allowed to be exchanged and it required the law to be changed.
You do know that the databases held by the government would be the oldest and largest in the country? The idea that they would be one day integrated was never planned as nobody could or would be able to plan it. It is like wondering why all recording wasn't digital.:rolleyes:

Civil servant don't really do much coding and don't have open ended budgets. Costs determine what you get provided by a 3rd party. Try to get extra development done without any budget or required specification.

Integrating the data is not massively difficult but if the data is provided wrong that doesn't matter. The data is often provided incorrectly on purpose. Like the case of the children getting the letter not the parents, this has certainly been done intentionally on many records.

The point about private companies was quite simply to point out it isn't unique to civil servants but the nature of data handling. If you ask 3 large companies to integrate their data they would have as many problems nothing unique to civil servants. They wouldn't even have data that size dealing with Irish customers.

Basically I am saying what you said requires an absence of knowledge on the subject and a issue with civil servants. I doubt you have any real world experience of such projects.

I'm not even attempting to argue that submitted data can contain errors.
I have seen completed LPT forms where individuals have entered their Pensions number in the Employers Reg No field for example.
And obviously there would be those who would withhold or provide inaccurate data for fraudulent reasons.
But if you want an example of a sh1t system developed by civil servants (regardless of whether the actual development was internal or outsourced, the business analysis will have been completed internally) look at the Property Price Register.
The lack of controls on the data fields has resulted in Post codes appearing in multiple fields for example.
Systems applications/physical forms developed where Joe Bloggs will input data should as idiot proof as possible.
It is a cop out by any business analysts or developer/project manager etc to blame the end user.

And I do have real world knowledge in this area. I fix these fvck ups.

Ray Palmer

Zamboni wrote: »

I'm not even attempting to argue that submitted data can contain errors.
I have seen completed LPT forms where individuals have entered their Pensions number in the Employers Reg No field for example.
And obviously there would be those who would withhold or provide inaccurate data for fraudulent reasons.
But if you want an example of a sh1t system developed by civil servants (regardless of whether the actual development was internal or outsourced, the business analysis will have been completed internally) look at the Property Price Register.
The lack of controls on the data fields has resulted in Post codes appearing in multiple fields for example.
Systems applications/physical forms developed where Joe Bloggs will input data should as idiot proof as possible.
It is a cop out by any business analysts or developer/project manager etc to blame the end user.

And I do have real world knowledge in this area. I fix these fvck ups.

Fixing data after the fact is no where near the experience you would need to understand how to do such a project. It would be like a mechanic saying they know how to design and make a car for a production line.

The lack of a uniform postal address in Ireland is a big part of the problem in this country. You need to have 4 address lines at least and then Dublin has a post district on top of that.

Business analysis is traditionally not done by a civil servant on the majority of IT projects. Scope is normally all they do. Property house register is reliant on a number of data sources and highly prone to data import problems. If you have ever had to try and get uniformity from such sources you would know it is not possible. UAT is really all civil servants really do.

No need to blame the end user it is a fact garbage in garbage out. If you need to be flexible on a field you can't restrict the data if it is a subjective rule such as address. When you make something idiot proof they just make better idiots.

The day you can make a paper form have restrictive fields is day it isn't paper. Any BA worth their salt will give a estimate of error rates on applicants coming in. It is about as much as you can get in with as little hassle as possible. You are blaming civil servant for something they have little or no control over along with saying leading international IT companies don't know how to do their jobs. I am a bit sceptical that you know better having experience with the process of creating system from scratch, installing new systems and linking systems.

Who know you could be a genius the world is waiting from but all probability says you are not.:eek:

Zamboni

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Business analysis is traditionally not done by a civil servant on the majority of IT projects.

UAT is really all civil servants really do.

You are blaming civil servant for something they have little or no control over along with saying leading international IT companies don't know how to do their jobs.

You think you can outsource everything from coding to blame.
Whereas, I believe the buck stops with the IT and management in the various govt depts.

Ray Palmer wrote: »

I am a bit sceptical that you know better having experience with the process of creating system from scratch, installing new systems and linking systems.

We don't know each other credentials IRL, so there is little point in comparing cock size.

Ray Palmer

Zamboni wrote: »

You think you can outsource everything from coding to blame.
Whereas, I believe the buck stops with the IT and management in the various govt depts.
.

Actually I don't think there is any blame at all you seem to think there is. It is part of a limitation of how systems work. They won't be 100% accurate given the data source so that is it.

I am not a civil servant but I have worked with them along with the private sector. There is nothing exceptionally good nor bad.

Nothing you have said indicates any real experience given you seem to blame civil servants for the limitation of IT systems. People without IT knowledge might believe you but I for one won't.