Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 November 2013
207. Deputy Andrew Doyle asked the Minister for Finance the reason a local property tax letter from the Revenue Commissioners to a person (details supplied) in County Wicklow says the person's 2014 LPT is €810, as opposed to a lesser amount, in view of fact that the 2013 LPT return for the half year was €202; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46704/13]
View answerI am advised by Revenue that a key component of the work undertaken in connection with the administration of Local Property Tax (LPT) was the development of a register of residential properties in the State. The development of the Property Register required Revenue to extract and consolidate data in relation to approximately 2 million individual property records from across multiple sources including various Government and non-Government agencies. Some of the properties were difficult to match with absolute certainty because of different variations of addresses and names across the different datasets. This was particularly prevalent in rural areas which resulted in some duplication of properties on the Property Register or the incorrect association of some individuals with properties that were unconnected to them. Throughout its communications programme, Revenue clearly stated that it was inevitable that some of the data matching would be incorrect given the scale of the project and advised all property owners who received incorrect details in regard to their properties to make immediate contact to correct the record. Revenue also advised that, if taxpayers did not make contact, they ran the risk of being incorrectly assessed for LPT against a property they did not own or that possibly did not exist (i.e., a duplicate entry on the register).
In regard to the specific case mentioned by the Deputy, Revenue has informed me that the person in question was categorised as a ‘multiple owner’ of two properties on the Property Register. Revenue subsequently assessed the person in respect of both properties for 2013, which was repeated for 2014. This gave rise to the €810 charge, which was €405 in respect of each property.
The person was assessed for the two properties for 2014 because, while he paid his 2013 liability on one property, he did not make contact with Revenue about the other property. As a consequence Revenue issued an estimated notification for the ‘second property’ in addition to the correct notification in regard to the ‘first property’.
I am advised that Revenue has now contacted the person in question and has established that there is only one property involved and that the ‘second property’ is in fact a duplicate. The Property Register has been updated to reflect the correct situation and the taxpayer has been advised that his LPT liability for 2014 is €405.
