Sir, – Michael McDowell (Opinion, September 1st) raises the fraught matter of the Local Property Tax and the iniquity of its application based upon alleged market value and location.
Whenever Government income generation relies upon variable factors, fluctuations in property values and location for example, the result is invariably, and, as he rightly points out, unfair; and not alone unfairness but an issue that is a nightmare as regards calibration, administration and, worse still, has become a tedious political issue.
The principle that tax on income, which is by nature variable, is accepted, however to have variable factors to govern levels applied to such a universal tax as LPT is perverse.
The 17th-century window tax was a property tax of a sort but gave rise to a self-inflicted variable, blocking up openings to reduce liability! Rates, another form of local property tax, was universal in its application and generally accepted as a reasonable form of regional taxation until abolished.
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Would it not be preferable to operate a simple fixed rate domestic property tax based on the quantifiable floor area of each house or apartment regardless of location, collected and controlled by Revenue and distributed to the local area from whence it was gathered.
This would be equitable and easier to manage than the present chaotic and contentious arrangement.
– Yours, etc,
KEN WIGHAM,
Dunmore East,
Co Waterford.