Kilkenny hoteliers have called for urgent action by local authorities in Kilkenny to exercise their powers to establish emergency waiver schemes in respect of local authority rates payable by the seriously wounded hotel and guest house sector.
Damien Lynch, chairman of the IHF Kilkenny Branch, stated that hotels and guest houses were operating under an inequitably run system of ratings that was crippling businesses with excessive, out-of-kilter, levies that were based on out-of-date information. He pointed out that the inability of most hotels and guest houses to pay rates at current levels could have been ameliorated had the rating system in the Valuation Act 2001 been rolled out in a proper and timely manner.
“Hotels and guest houses are struggling to pay excessive rates in 2009 that amount to an unfair burden on enterprises which are already facing disastrous conditions and barely surviving. In effect, hoteliers are operating under an aggressive taxation system that imposes an inequitable burden in circumstances where there is also a clear inability to pay,” said Mr Lynch.
The IHF stated that the current exorbitant levels of rates are a result of the slow pace at which new valuations have been carried out by the Commissioner of Valuation since the 2001 Act came into effect.
The IHF is now urgently calling on each local authority immediately to enter into arrangements with individual hotel and guest house owners to facilitate the payment of reduced amounts in a manner that recognises both the inability of enterprises to meet current local authority rates, as well as the fact that this inability could have been avoided had the statutory revaluation process been carried out within the timeframe originally envisaged.
