Payments of property tax show surge after warnings
€325 million in LPT for 2016 has been collected to date, including €48m in pre-payments received last year.
The half-yearly figures are still down €3m on the corresponding period in 2015.
Revenue Commissioners said the compliance rate with the tax is now running at 95% after reporting that it had slipped to 87% at the end of April. The compliance rate is still slightly below the 2015 level of 97%.
Donegal is the only county where the rate is below 90%. Its half-year level is 88.6%. Fingal has the country’s highest level of compliance, with 99.3 of households paying the tax.
“There have been a relatively small number of non-compliant cases that left Revenue with no alternative but to deploy compliance sanctions to ensure payment,” Revenue stated.
However, it had been possible to resolve many of these cases without having to fully follow through on various sanctions. So far in 2016, more than 700 cases have been selected for referral to sheriffs and solicitors.
“Of these, 454 cases have escalated beyond demand stage to full debt collection/enforcement action,” said Revenue.
Since the start of the year, Revenue have also issued instructions to almost 38,000 employers or pension providers for the mandatory deduction of LPT from their incomes or pensions for being non-compliant.
A further 49,267 property owners who were already subject to mandatory deductions last year have continued to have their LPT money taken out of their regular salary or pension payments.
Around 10,200 properties have had their valuations increased — 2,000 more than the same time last year — as a result of a combination of self-correction and challenges by Revenue.
