Property tax receipts to increase by up to €3m next year

The Revenue Commissioners expect an increase in tax receipts from the local property tax (LPT) of between €2 million and €3 million next year as seven local authorities opt to up the basic rates payable on properties.

Speaking to an Oireachtas Budgetary Oversight committee, Revenue principal officer Keith Walsh said the result of the local authority increases was a "marginal" increase in LPT receipts.

Asked whether the tax could jump significantly for homeowners when it is reviewed in 2019, he pointed to research from 2015 that said 48 per cent of homeowners would not have moved bands if the tax was revised then.

However, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett noted figures released on Tuesday from the Central Statistics Office suggesting property prices in Ireland had risen 86 per cent since the economic crash.

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While Mr Walsh conceded that liabilities would increase as a result of that price rise, because of the wide-ranging nature of the LPT bands, it did not follow that every homeowner would automatically be paying more.

The review of LPT, which is due in 2019, will come against a backdrop of increasing deferrals of payments.

Mr Walsh said there were 62,000 deferrals of LPT this year, with around 95 per cent of those falling into the category of “below the income threshold”. He said that was an increase on previous years.

Asked whether the Revenue had begun to prepare for the 2019 review, Mr Walsh said such preparations would not begin until the end of next year, when Revenue will begin putting IT infrastructure in place to deal with the data collection that will be needed.

At present more than 1.7 million householders pay LPT based on valuations of their homes made in 2013, when the property market was at a low point.