What will the Local Property Tax changes mean for you?

On 2 June 2021, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe confirmed the details of the Local Property Tax (LPT) changes. Once the changes go into effect on 1 November, the government estimates that just over a third (36 percent) of property owners will see an increase on their bill, just over half (53 percent) will see no change at all, and 11 percent will see their tax payments reduced.

First off, what is the Local Property Tax? The Local Property Tax was introduced in 2013, and it is an annual charge on all residential properties in the State. Basically, if you own a residential property, you will have to pay this tax. The charges are currently based on self-assessed valuations carried out in 2013. The amount you pay is based on the valuation of your property, and there are 20 different LPT bands, with the lowest two having fixed rate charges of €90 and €225. The problem with these valuations is that property prices have surged since 2013, while the valuations of property for LPT purposes have not changed since 1 May 2013. …

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How the Biden administration’s new proposition might affect Ireland

A key part of Ireland’s appeal to international investment has been its pro business infrastructure and low corporate tax rate of 12.5%, and for decades major U.S. corporations have made use of that infrastructure and tax rate. Some prominent examples include Google, Facebook, and Apple, which famously made use of the notorious “double Irish” tax loophole in the 1990s. International firms have become an integral part of the Irish economy of today, to say the least.

However, U.S. President Joe Biden has introduced a new tax proposition that might change that dynamic. It has suggested that U.S. corporations be subject to a global minimum corporate tax rate, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recommending a rate of 21%. This would work in the following way: if a U.S. firm has operations in Ireland and pays the lower Irish tax rate for those operations, the U.S. government would be able to apply additional taxes on that revenue until it reaches a rate of 21%. The rationale behind this proposal is to make ensure a more fair and level playing field, while …

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Irish Mortgage Brokers press coverage on Budget 2018

We had a lot of press covering budget 2018, our contributions are listed below:

Here is a piece from The Irish Sun. “You literally couldn’t hope for a better small country to do lobbying in because we managed to give nothing to anybody, everything to somebody, nobody is happy about it and everybody knows it was a fiscal version of the most ­average-looking horse in the glue factory”.

The Irish Independent also featured an article by Karl Deeter: It would take a special type of fool to fall for anything you hear in the Budget as being “in your favour”.

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Sunshine 106.8fm personal finance show

Click here to hear our personal finance slot on Sunshine 106.8fm which is on every Tuesday evening at 18:30.

This week we looked at the following topics

1. The government push to reverse the lacuna or ‘loophole’ that has made it virtually impossible for banks to repossess houses since July 2011. 2. Property tax, how Revenue are the collectors and the tax authority who will supervise it. 3. Taking back Tax Relief at Source from homeowners who are not paying their mortgage. 4. Finding ‘hidden money’ in your own personal finances. 5. How there is a trend towards reducing wealth transfer between generations via changes to inheritance and the changes in thresholds that affect this.

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A phone call with Bob Frank, author of ‘The Economic Naturalist’

One of my favourite things to do is to talk to the people who write the books I love, often they are hard to reach, others are surprisingly easy, some of them are hard to talk to, others are some of the nicest folks you could hope to have a conversation with, Bob Frank is very much the former and the latter, it took a while to reach him but it was worth waiting for, he has the quality I like best (and I mentioned it already in the review I did on his book ‘The Economic Naturalist’) – namely the ability to talk about complex ideas in plain language.

I called Bob at his house in Ithaca and below are the contents of some of that conversation.

KD: Bob, you have said before that you feel economics has gotten too numerical, that taking that direction can sometimes provide absolute ‘truths’ that simply are not what they seem, so where does the art come into it? Where …

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The cost of the taxation system is a tax in itself

While I am not a believer in ‘flat tax’ this video from the Cato Institute does make some very valid points that stand true even in Ireland. The burden of compliance in taxation and elsewhere is actually a barrier to an efficient taxation system.

Taxation being complex is so widely accepted now that many don’t ask the fundamental question: If we/you are the one paying taxes is it too much to ask that they be made simple to understand and easily comprehended by the very people they affect? Perhaps the complexity of the taxation system is part of what protects it and stops people from asking these questions.

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