Property tax - Alternatives are even less attractive

This might be a good week to be a member of one of those contemplative religious orders who has sworn to observe silence and embrace a kind of unthreatening poverty.

You would avoid the pressures of materialism and property because of the support of some people who have chosen a more predicable life defined by income and expenditure. There would be no need to worry about being unemployed, job security, negative equity, an unmanageable mortgage, crippling personal debt, or the long-anticipated Revenue Commissioners property tax letter due in 1.6m homes any day now.

Yesterday afternoon, Revenue launched a website offering its view of how much properties might fetch if mortgages were more easily available. As prices continue to fluctuate, and fall steadily in some areas, some people will challenge official guidelines but it is reasonable to anticipate, or at least hope, that the assessments won’t be too far off the mark. It is reasonable too to accept that if you are liable for the tax you will end up paying it. Revenue has been given a pretty effective toolkit to ensure compliance. The tax can be taken from welfare payments, salaries, or bank accounts.

At least two TDs have suggested that they will not pay the tax. The idea of a parliamentary representative defying legislation democratically enacted by that parliament deserves censure of an altogether different, more imposing kind. Such a position is, after all, a direct challenge to our democratic system by individuals elected to make it work and to protect it.

The mechanics of the tax and its collection are pretty straightforward, even in a country where 12% of private residential mortgages were in arrears of three months or more last December. The issue of mortgage arrears and spectacular stamp duty bills incurred at the height of our madness have coloured the debate around the new tax and will hopefully act as an incentive for Government the expedite measures to confront the mortgage arrears crisis.

But, at the end of the day, just two questions will define the success or failure of the property tax project: 1) Is it fair? 2) Is there an alternative?

To answer those questions objectively is very difficult, especially in a society where so many people feel so very put upon, where so many people are living in circumstances they never imagined they would have to endure. However, the tax seems reasonably even-handed and, despite a long list of ways to defer or avoid the levy, it has a universality that enhances the idea of society and that our expectations of it are sometimes matched by obligations to it. At this point in our history, it is appropriate to underline that circular relationship, especially as the figures involved are not even multiples of what some people pay for television services.

The only alternatives would probably involve increasing taxes on income and the Government has made a good argument for not doing this. However, that argument only has a certain shelf-life and it is impossible to see how any other universal taxes can be imposed unless high earners face a new top rate of tax.

Meath election - So much for new politics

Helen McEntee finds herself contesting the Meath East byelection for Fine Gael in the most tragic of circumstances. She hopes to win a mandate to succeed her late father when the election is held on Mar 27.

The 26-year-old political worker — she worked with her father for two-and-a-half years — was the only person to contest the party’s nomination.

Ms McEntee’s selection continues a time-honoured if unsatisfactory tradition. She cannot be criticised for this, as she is not the first or last person to be nominated in such a sad train of events — at least two members of the Cabinet were first elected to the Dáil to replace their fathers. Nevertheless, her selection strengthens the idea of an incestuous closed shop where certain families — in all parties — hold undue influence.

It is an unfortunate reality for Ms McEntee that she is standing for a party that was elected with a spectacular mandate for reform but her nomination shows yet again how very little changes in Irish politics.