Government’s property tax plan needs election scrutiny

Dispelling any doubt that this was anything other than a pre-election budget, Finance Minister Michael Noonan mentioned property, property taxes and property assets half a dozen times in his speech last Tuesday.

Because of “the recovery in asset prices, particularly property”, Mr Noonan said he would increase the capital acquisition threshold; provide a tax exemption for pyrite-ridden properties; and would kick the 2016 requirement on households to revalue their properties far into the future, long after the election.

The finance minister’s comments about the report he had commissioned into reforming the barely three-year-old local property tax were telling too.