asked the Minister for Finance the duties that have now been allocated to the staff in the capital taxation section of the Valuation Office, who are engaged in wealth tax assessment; if any additional members of the staff have now been allocated by the Valuation Office to carry out upwards revisions of valuations of shops, business premises and offices throughout the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers . - Valuation Office Staff .
117.
: The principal functions of the Valuation Office are (a) to revise, in accordance with the Valuation Acts, the valuations of such rateable hereditaments as are listed annually for that purpose by the various rating authorities, and (b) estimation, at the request of the Revenue Commissioners, for various property tax purposes of the capital value of interests in immovable property.
All valuer staff are liable to be engaged on either of these duties and are interchangeable in these areas. While particular blocks of staff are assigned to these duties, temporary transfer of staff from one duty to another is required on occasion to meet peak and pressure periods. Apart from adapting to such occasional needs, there has been no basic alteration in the amount of attention devoted to capital taxes work. It should be noted that the annual revision of valuations has to be completed and the results issued to the rating authorities by a statutory date, which this year will be 1 October next. Valuations dealt with on annual revision may be increased, reduced or left unaltered, each case being dealt with on its own merits. Since revisions of valuations are carried out at the initiative of the various rating authorities or of the individual ratepayer it would not be open to the Valuation Office to itself initiate a revision of valuations of shops, business premises and offices.