MINISTER FOR Transport Leo Varadkar has said he believes a “large number” of people will pay the household charge by the March 31st deadline, but that of those who don’t, the “vast majority” will pay in the next six months to avoid fines.
Some 18,367 properties were registered for the tax between last Friday and yesterday evening.
A total of 279,930 properties had been registered by 4pm yesterday – raising just under €28 million. Of that, €3.8 million represents direct debit sign-ups and €18.4 million was paid by credit or debit cards.
Mr Varadkar said he was conscious that the majority of people will have paid the charge before the end-of-year exchequer returns.
“I understand that there are a lot of people who object to the charge and people have the right to object to something if they don’t agree with it,” he said.
The Minister said he had paid his own €100 household charge in January. He said people had a responsibility to obey the law.
“You can’t break the law one day and then expect the law to be there to protect you the next day.
“And you can’t refuse to pay your taxes one day and expect then to be able to draw on other people’s taxes when you need to avail of services the next day or later on in your life.”
He said he was not aware of any option to extend the deadline for payment of the charge, but that this was a matter for Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.
Late payment interest of 1 per cent per month, or part of a month, will apply to outstanding amounts after March 31st.
A late payment fee of 10 per cent will apply to charges paid no later than six months after the due date. If payment is made later than six months after the deadline but not later than 12 months, a 20 per cent late fee will apply. The fine increases to 30 per cent of the outstanding amount after that.
Fianna Fáil had called for an extension of the deadline, in light of what it said were “serious inadequacies with legislation, the lack of a proper information campaign and inequalities with payment procedures”.
The party’s environment spokesman Niall Collins said Mr Hogan had been “so distracted by rushing through his controversial legislation and scaring people into paying it by the end of March that he has completely abandoned all sense of fairness and procedure”.
He said there had been initial problems with some local authorities mistakenly charging an extra 10 per cent where householders sought to pay the charge directly in their local authority office.
In addition, the campaign had alienated thousands of older people and others who did not have internet access because it was based on an online model of registration.
Fine Gael Laois-Offaly TD Marcella Corcoran Kennedy hit back at a claim from Fianna Fáil that Government Ministers could avoid paying the charge on their own homes.