Parking Levy on hold

McSpud

Sunday Business Post

A levy which was to be imposed on people who brought their cars to work has been temporarily stalled by the government. The car parking levy, which was announced in last October’s budget, has yet to be implemented, and no date has been set for its introduction.

The Revenue, which will be in charge of collecting the levy, has said that the matter is still in the hands of the Department of Finance, and it had not been told when the scheme will start.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance said that discussions were still ongoing with local authorities around the country as to how it would be implemented.

The budget proposed to charge a flat rate levy of €200 per annum to employees who are provided with car parking facilities by their employers.

The levy was intended to be confined to the main urban centres of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. One oft he main topics of negotiations is the definition of what constitutes an urban area, since the levy will not be implemented on local authority boundaries.

Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan had said that the levy would be in operation during the first half of this year.

The Department spokesman said that it was hoped that the levy would be launched in at least one urban area during this period. It was envisaged that the measure would be introduced on a phased basis, and it would be another few months before the levy was imposed on a second area.

Good news. Clearly the Department of Finance can't think of a way to implement this.

Surely one of the most stipid levies/taces to be attempted for some time. The fact that anyone who uses a space was to get charged at the same rate & could not be shared highlights its stupidity.

andrewh5

Good news indeed! The whole idea was completely unworkable.

Saab Ed

andrewh5 wrote: »

Good news indeed! The whole idea was completely unworkable.

Maybe if they had put their inflation fueling tax cuts and bench marking on hold for the last ten years they wouldnt have to come up with stupid levies like this :eek:

ART6

andrewh5 wrote: »

Good news indeed! The whole idea was completely unworkable.

Not unworkable at all. It's a tax that could hugely benefit the public purse and could be applied as follows:

1. Fit every parking area with ANPR cameras

2. Sell all drivers electronic tags, but also provide an on-line and telephone method of paying for intermittent parking use.

3. Contract E-Flow to manage the system (that has been proved to work well)

4. Put the Minister for the Environment in charge of the system so that he can then reduce each parking space to a size that will only accept a small child's buggy (for environmental reasons). This will increase the number of spaces available and in so doing increase the revenue.

5. Where an employer occupies premises in an industrial or office estate with central parking, decide based upon the number of employees how many parking spaces he is deemed to be providing. The number of employees should not be how many actually employed, but rather how many could be determined by the floor space of his offices or works. This would permit the Regulations to be refined in the future by simply increasing the number of employees deemed to be able to occupy one square metre of floor space.

6. Roll out the system to those wealthy people who park their cars in their driveways. This doesn't need ANPR cameras since all that is necessary is to establish if their houses actually have driveways. Then they can be deemed to have chargeable parking spaces even if they have no cars.

7. Where a parking space is provided by an employer and is charged for, it becomes a place of work under health and safety regulations. That allows the health and safety authorities to take action against the employer for any breach of duty such as allowing puddles to form or ice in Winter that might cause injury to an employee. That is a further potential source of revenue in desperate times.

All it takes is a little imagination:D

Steve

ART6 wrote: »

All it takes is a little imagination:D

hehe..

Add to that.. make bus passengers and cyclists pay road tax

ART6

Steve wrote: »

hehe..

Add to that.. make bus passengers and cyclists pay road tax

Are you seriously suggesting that John Gormley should pay road tax for his bike?:eek: I sense anarchy in the air.

alastair

Steve wrote: »

hehe..

Add to that.. make bus passengers and cyclists pay road tax

How often does it need to be said - no-one pays road tax. We don't have road tax.

Steve

ART6 wrote: »

Are you seriously suggesting that John Gormley should pay road tax for his bike?:eek: I sense anarchy in the air.

It wouldn't be any worse than any of the other hare-brained schemes he's come up with in the past.

alastair wrote: »

How often does it need to be said - no-one pays road tax. We don't have road tax.

I know that - that's why I'm suggesting it