Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 13 February 2014
83. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Finance the reason a local property tax letter was issued to a person (details supplied) in Dublin 9 living in a Dublin City Council senior citizens' complex; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7296/14]
View answerI am informed by Revenue that a key aspect of the work undertaken in regard to Local Property Tax (LPT) was the development of a comprehensive register of residential properties in the State. During the compilation of the Property Register some matching difficulties were encountered when consolidating the various Government and non-Government data sources and in a relatively small number of cases, properties were incorrectly linked to non-liable individuals. These incorrect linkages resulted in Revenue issuing LPT Returns or payment notifications to people in respect of properties, which they were not liable for.
As part of its comprehensive LPT communications strategy, Revenue clearly stated that errors in the compilation of the Property Register were inevitable given the scale of the task. For that reason Revenue requested that anybody, including tenants, who received incorrect notifications to contact the Helpline as soon as possible to ensure that the record was amended to reflect the correct information, thereby avoiding any future unnecessary communications or compliance interventions.
In the specific case to which the Deputy refers, Revenue linked the person in question to the particular property based on data imported to the Property Register from another Government source, and issued her with an LPT 1 Return in March 2013. As Revenue did not receive any correspondence in regard to the issue, the Property Register was not updated with the correct information and a further Return/payment reminder letter issued to the person on 27 January 2014.
Revenue has confirmed to me that on foot of the Deputy's representation it has examined the case and amended the Property Register to reflect the correct ownership details for the property in question.
