Property tax paying bondholders?

This was something that broke while I was on annual leave, it’s really infuriating to see that the property tax which was meant to be a fresh start for local authorities funding is (for 2013) not going to be given to them.

While a politician will always find a way to wiggle out of being called a liar, it’s pedantic to the extreme to think that the public would have realised that it was only going to local government from 2014 and not from the outset. If that was common knowledge it wouldn’t have made a headline so recently.

Given that this is bad outcome it does have to be balanced, and saying that the money is ‘going to bondholders’ is populist nonsense. If it is in the general expenditure coffer then it could go anywhere, you could equally spin the story that it’s going towards cancer wards in hospitals, that it is going towards supporting the homeless or anything else.

The tragedy here is that on the …

Read More →

‘Wat’er rip off! Yet another downside of market value based property tax

Not linking a property tax to the cost of running a local authority means we will have no idea of exactly what we are paying for. When it comes to how local government is funded it works (in simple terms) as follows, you have their costs, from that you take away ‘goods & services’ – this is income the local authority generates. Then you reduce it by the pension levy (local government workers fund this), and after that you traditionally had the local government fund and grants.

The local government fund is made up of car tax for the most part, and until recently it was a key component of funding, it was partially replaced by the household charge and the last portion of funding is made up of commercial rates.

The Dublin City expenditure position is below, note that a sizeable portion of it is spent on water, almost 16% – which is a significant cost.

An issue with a national market value oriented …

Read More →