Sir, – There are two aspects of the property tax that may have been mentioned but not debated. In the case of someone who, say four years ago, bought a site and took out a 30-year mortgage of €300,000, a number of questions arise. Who owns the property, the borrower or the lender? If the latter, why should the borrower pay the property tax? For a site sold for in excess of €80,000, the buyer would pay stamp duty of 6 per cent, or €4,800. On the house, the stamp duty would be 1 per cent, or €3,000 – for a total of €7,800. Given that stamp duty is a property tax, should such a person not be given a 10-year property tax holiday from the date the stamp duty was paid? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – What Kurt Tidmore of rural Cork (August 28th) misses is that a value-based property tax takes no account of the loan taken out on the house; it is also a double penalty for owners seeking employment in Dublin who are forced to pay large sums for smaller houses. A small terraced house in the city will cost significantly more than the 4,000 sq ft houses I see all over rural Donegal.
A property tax should be on the property not the location.
A floor area-based tax would treat all houses equally, and a bonus would be to discourage the epidemic across the country of rural houses that look more like hotels. – Yours, etc,