Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

So only yearly and holiday homes get taxed? Why is only dependent related? My cousin is living there at the moment because I helping them out. What laws needs to be changed so you can store that information?

You can go back and address the other points you ignored

PPR doesn't mean a property is vacant or not

I get this point. Broadly speaking I am not against incentivising the development of property or even land through taxation. However, I do agree with Fliball123 in so far as this thread quite frequently advocates for higher taxes. I have seen people say that there should be increased annual taxes placed on properties (nigh on punitive, mind you), which are determined by the value of the house, in order to encourage older people to downsize. This increased tax would then be reflected in lower income tax (lol).

In the real world I am going to be paying extra tax on my house and my income taxes are going to stay the same. If you don't believe me I have a temporary USC bridge to sell you.

A holiday home is not a mad scenario but that is ignored when brought up.

You didn't answer the other questions at all. I have asked you to clarify everything to see how it all works.

Am I to take it you are happy with the 30 days of use as means it is not vacant? You are happy to have a house vacant 9 years if the person is in a nursing home but only if they are using fair deal?

Laws change all the time.

A tax doesn’t infringe your right to own something in the same way the current LPT I pay doesn’t infringe my right to own a home and the income tax I pay doesn’t prevent me having a job.

I’d be confident the majority wouldn’t be too upset with a modestly higher tax on holiday homes than PPRs, but of course I can’t say that conclusively without a survey.

My goodness what a long one. My replies in bold

A) there is no register of PPR so you need to create one, which requires legislation and its' own rules

You know the current VHT also takes PPR into account but is based on self declaring. A register of PPR can be self declaring also but is more comprehensive as it means people cannot declare for 2x properties that they are their PPR.

B) So only people renting can be considered to be living in a property if not PPR.

Well yeah. Who else lives in a property if it's not PPR or rented? FYI allowing extended family to live in a house is a benefit in the eyes of revenue, really this should come under RTB as a tenancy even if no rent were to be charged.

C) Other people in nursing home paying for their own care will be subject to the tax

This would also apply with current VHT that's based on self reporting occupancy.

Now there are also details you are ignoring or not stated

i) People who decide to work abroad for a while will be taxed

Moving across the country or abroad for work for extended period is leaving a property vacant. Rent it or sell it, you can't have your cake and eat it. Most people do rent the house if they are abroad for a long period anyways.

ii) holiday homes will be taxed

As they should be.

iii) no mention of how long before the vacant tax starts or stops (some suggested 2 years others 6 months)

This is an implementation level detail that posters on boards don't really need. I say 1 year (excluding property in probate)

iv) No tax on semi vacant property

What is semi vacant when it's at home?

v) No mention of short term lets

If it's rented out it isn't vacant

vi) how to deal with people moving home as the PPR takes 6 months at least

Takes 6 months to do what?

vii) No mention of the rate and how it will be calculated

Again, this level of detail is not necessary for a debate on boards. Pure pedantry, but let's say 1% of property value.

Our property taxes are comically low by international standards. Even big bad communist America would laugh at our property taxes. A slight uplift on vacant and second homes would not be at all extreme.

I own a very valuable home. My income tax bill is over 100 times the size of my LPT bill.

The need to rebalance our tax take between income and property is glaringly obvious.

So you want to change the definition of vacant from 30 days of use? If so to what? Why bother calling it a vacancy tax when you actually mean a tax on properties you don't like the use of? It requires multiple laws and constitutional changes so can you explain how you get around that?

We've been saying this for all least a couple of decades. No one left to hear it now.

I will show you the courtesy of answering all the points you raise in your post rather than "cherry picking" points to respond to for your own reason's.

We are discussing vacant property taxes etc. You reference how a company tries to abuse a dominant position and anti monopoly activities. In order for a company/individual be either a monopoly or have significant dominance in any market they need to be in a position to control the market. For this to occur you need to have a small number of individuals that market to exert significant control over that market. Unless you can prove to me that there are a small number of individuals within the market that have this power then I don't accept your premise. Could it be that there are a large number of participants deciding not to undertake a course of action for their own reasons?

If we consider your position on "regulate what people do with property" on a proportionate basis then perhaps the first port of call is the properties the State own? What about council owned properties that are under utilised? How many of these have spare capacity to better utilise "bed spaces"? What about vacant State properties?

Property does indeed take up land and land is indeed finite but how much land is in Ireland in State ownership/ outside of the capital. How often do we hear that towns and villages are being "hollowed out" and turning into almost "ghost towns".

I find the term "hoarding" ironic. The vast majority of vacant properties are owned by individuals. You appear to think that businesses (not those who have a single property) are somehow holding land just for capital gain. That in itself is a very risky strategy if the country goes into a recession or is severely impacted by the USA economic plans for Europe then land will loose its value quite quickly.

How many planning permissions are being denied? How many times do we here that the infrastructure is not there or not sufficient to meet the proposal large scale developments?

I will once again pose the question that I have asked on a number of occasions on this forum which no one is even attempting to answer "who is responsible to solve the housing situation"?

This article give more insight on how long it takes to list a derelict site and reason for long time periods. Curious at what point people here think it should have been listed

You just haven't bothered looking up existing laws and have no sense when it comes to talking about it. Yes if you ignore all other legal consequences and make up ways to magically get information your idea is fine.

VHT is applied to council property already. You didn't read any information