The Property Tax Is A Regressive Tax

Ever since the economic collapse of 2008 government after government, year on year, have introduced austerity measures. The property tax continues this legacy of austerity right up to 2024.

From 2010 to 2014 we’ve had 7 austerity budgets and to introduce the property tax on top of all these austerity measures and in the middle of a housing crisis it is not regressive but obscene.

Working class communities are still pulling themselves up off the floor, while the country deals with a cost-of-living crisis, then a working family gets hit with a higher tax on their property, even if their home is mortgaged, just so the government can cut funding for local services, unless your council collects the property tax from your pockets!

Well, that’s their reasoning.

But homeowners already pay a lot of other taxes so at a minimum we should expect some return in the way of services for the city. But not so. Councils have closed local clubs and community services across the city. Staff are not being hired as the city turns into a filthy drab environment and our communities show the signs of neglect and decay.

Firstly, most working people who have a roof over their head either have a mortgage or are paying rent. If you pay rent the landlord ups the rent to cover the LPT so while landlords may have multiple properties, it’s the renter that covers this cost not the owner of the property.

As for those with a mortgage, yes at some stage they will own the property but technically the bank or financial institution will always remind you that in the case of default the bank holds the deeds, but you cover the property tax. While there is mortgage tax relief it’s like giving with one hand and taking with the other.

Why doesn’t Labour ask landlords and banks to cough up? Because -Yes! If your working class, you just can’t catch a break.

Secondly, the true toxic nature of the Local Property Tax is that this tax is administered by the inland revenue and for example, if you pay a mortgage and you are on the dole for example, they will get you to pay it out of your dole, there is no escaping it for working people.

Even public housing owned by councils has to pay it, but the big problem is this tax is a financial penalty on the family home, at some stage this tax will be paid and at some point some family on a tight budget will have to do without to pay it, and there are more and more families on tight budgets, more than ever before especially with the cost of living crisis here and across Europe.

The property tax came in as an afterthought, when in 2016 the Government of the time thought it would be a great idea to reform local councils. Essentially the reform of local government was that all local councils are to be centrally funded via the newly minted government department of Local Government.

Essentially the limted power of local government was being transferred to national government thereby
handing more power with a more centralised administrative system, power grab if you will by the government of the day.

This power grab, sorry administrative measure, raised eyebrows in Brussels and recently the Irish Government have been reprimanded for their undemocratic local authority reforms and advised to return political and financial autonomy back to local government.

So all local councils’ management, including Dublin City Council, sent in their budget requirements for the following year, and low and behold all the councils got their requests slapped down and were set reduced budgets of 20 to 30% less of what was required, and were requested to fund the shortfall from other measures, the Local Property Tax was born.

They claim the property tax will pay for local services while undermining working class communities and their populations. Another double whammy, thanks to the property tax.

All this so-called “reform” of local government is essentially and always was a way of cutting expenditure
on local government, essentially an austerity measure. Yet, we have anti working class political parties such as the Labour Party stating that the property tax is needed to pay for services - while admitting that the tax does not even cover the costs to pay for the services for the city!

This short sighted party of the upper middle class, Labour, along with their FF and FF buddies, ignore the financial plight of working-class families across the country and don’t understand that the property tax is a family holiday missed, a school trip cancelled for children or even the double whammy of days lost in work as the property tax comes out of the childcare fund.

By supporting Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in councils across the country Labour declares itself anti worker and pro-austerity, city services, most believe, should be paid for, through existing central taxation and not through secondary taxation which falls short of what our citizens deserve.

The property tax has to be removed, it has no connection to the provision to services in our city. Instead, we need taxes that are actually targeting the wealthy, rich property and land owners and their income from their property portfolios, the present property tax will remain toxic and regressive, just like those parties that support it!