The fat of the land, in terms of property tax take, lies in Dublin and its surrounding counties.
Dublin homeowners are still paying hefty sums even though the valuation date that set the level of a householder’s tax liability was more than a year ago, before house prices began, again, to spiral.
The Dublin City Council area is home to about one-eighth of taxable properties in the State, including many of the most expensive. Without any reduction in the rate, the council would net a healthy €63.5 million. With the 15 per cent reduction agreed by city councillors on Monday, it will still have €51.1 million to spend.
From next year, councillors in all 31 local authorities can vary the property tax up or down by up to 15 per cent. Fingal County Council was, last night, the final Dublin local authority to approve the full 15 per cent decrease.
With less than a week to go before councils must make their intentions known to Revenue, Wicklow County Council is the only non-Dublin local authority to take the full 15 per cent hit.
The decision of Dublin councillors to implement the full reduction seems an easy and obvious one: their constituents are paying the highest taxes because of their more costly homes; each local authority gets to keep 80 per cent of the tax collected in its area, with 20 per cent going to a central fund to be shared nationally, so Dublin councils get to keep a sizeable proportion of the cash taken in; and the tax is unpopular, so cutting it is popular.
The choice in rural counties is not so easy. Councillors would, of course, like to reduce the burden on their constituents, but don’t have their same cash to play about with.
For example, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has just over 80,000 taxable homes and to the middle of this year had collected almost €39 million in property tax. By comparison, Donegal has about 11,000 fewer houses registered for the tax ( just under 69,000). But because of lower property values, it collected just €8.7 million to the middle of this year.
However, if Dublin and the wealthier counties appear to be getting an easy ride, there is a catch.
That €51.1 million will form part of an operating budget of about €800 million for the city, most of which comes from rates and the provision of goods and services. But a chunk of it comes from Government grants that the council crucially needs to fund homeless services.
How big a chunk will the city council and others that gave the full 15 per cent now receive? The Government has yet to decide.
