There are fairer ways to impose residential tax

MINISTER Phil Hogan states “that this residential tax is to be introduced to make a contribution to local authority governance and services councils they provide”.

If we take his statement literally, we all need to take a step back from all the rumblings and question the logic of imposing such a tax based upon home value. Especially when defining a true value is impossible. Furthermore, many people live in larger houses, but have no jobs, many people live in smaller houses and have no mortgages or rents and have a job. Thousands are in negative equity and have no prospect of meeting commitments, regardless of house values. People that rent are exempt, but they use council services so what’s fair about that? Surely a more balanced and measured approach would be to introduce a local authority tax based upon the cost of providing services and to what level services are accessed and used by the population. Such a scheme should also bare a city weighting. Therefore, people living in Dublin would, quite rightly, pay the most, followed by Cork and Galway cities next, then people living in major towns, and then smaller towns, and finally, rural folk would pay the least.

But even if this suggestion is deemed to be fairer than imposing a property value tax, I would still resent paying unless the Government can demonstrate that it intends to completely overhaul local governance for the good of the people of our beleaguered country.