Dublin City Council asks public should it reduce property tax

Dublin City Council is looking for public views on whether or not it should reduce or raise the local property tax by 15 per cent.

Today it began a public consultation which runs until August. The responses will form part of a report to be presented by Owen Keegan to councillors on September 22nd. A decision must be made by the end of September in order to inform the Department of the Environment and Revenue by its deadline.

The council said it must ask for views and take this into account before making a decision.

Dublin City Council expects to receive some €64 million for property tax collected in 2014 out of some €80 million to be collected for the area by Revenue. Local authorities are given 80 per cent of money collected from the tax with the rest going to the Department of the Environment for redistribution.

From 2015 local authorities are allowed to vary the property tax by 15 per cent of the national base rate. However collection will still be undertaken by Revenue.

The base rate is 0.18 per cent for properties worth up to €1 million. For properties worth over €1 million the first million is taxed at 0.18 per cent with anything over that taxed at 0.25 per cent. The compliance rate in the Dublin City Council area is 93.6 per cent.

In a statement Dublin City Council pointed out that any decision to make a variation would be “very important in terms of future services provision”. It pointed out the services which the council was responsible for including parks, libraries, roads, lighting, planning, housing and street cleaning.

Members of the public can fill in the consultation form online and can read more about the consultation here until August 13th. Hard copies can also be collected from council libraries and Wood Quay civic offices and returned to LPT Consultation, C/O Finance Dept, Dublin City Council, Block 1 Floor 8, Civic Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8.

Yesterday Fingal County Council became the second council in the State to signal its intention to reduce the local property tax by 15 per cent, following a vote at the council meeting in Malahide.