A local opposition TD has criticised the new property levy imposed in this week’s budget, and has called a tax that will take 86c per day from the average family home in the Midlands “punitive” and “deeply unfair”.
Robert Troy TD has condemned the Government’s decision to “cast aside pre-election promises and introduce a punitive charge on the family home” as “the wrong tax at the wrong time”.
“The decision to push ahead with the tax is a result of neither Fine Gael nor Labour considering the needs of the ‘squeezed middle’,” he said.
The Government is to impose a new 0.18 per cent tax on the value of the family home up to €1m, within €50,000 bands.
A home worth €150,000 will be taxed at the rate of 0.18 per cent on €175,000 or at €315 per annum.
A home worth €210,000 will be taxed at 0.18 per cent on €225,000, or €405 per annum, with an additional 0.25 per cent rate applying to properties worth over €1m.
“The Government’s proposals for a property tax will hit struggling homeowners in Westmeath, at a time when they can least afford it. Now is simply not the time to inflict an unfair property tax on a struggling economy, weak housing market and homeowners working to make ends meet. The severely limited range of exemptions will ensure that this tax hits struggling homeowners hard,” said Deputy Troy.
“The average three-bedroom family home in the Midlands will be charged approximately €315 a year when the tax comes into full effect, and this will push many families struggling to make ends meet as it is over the edge,” he continued.
“I meet these families in towns across Westmeath and Longford every day and they just can’t cope any more. All the Government’s talk about fairness will mean nothing to ordinary homeowners struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
He says that this tax “breaks pre-election promises”, but that his party has “a fully-costed budget that does not hammer homeowners”.
