Homeowners have been given a reprieve on a deadline for returning their local property tax valuation.
Revenue had set a deadline of November 7th – this Sunday – for all homeowners to submit an updated property valuation on which their local property tax (LPT) would be based. Homeowners are obliged to submit a return on the basis of the value of their home as of November 1st.
However, the tax office announced this morning that the deadline has now been extended until 5pm on Wednesday, November 10th.
Revenue made the announcement on Friday amid what it said was an “extremely strong” rate of filing of returns by homeowners across the State in the past week.
It said that, as of Thursday, returns had been filed for an estimated 54 per cent of properties, with the owners of more than a million properties having either filed returns (964,600) or otherwise engaged with Revenue to meet their obligations, with 29,800 payments made with no return as yet. A total of 17,700 paper returns have yet to be scanned, Revenue says.
“With this high level of engagement expected to continue to increase further in the coming days, it is clear that property owners are making every effort to fully comply with their LPT obligations,” a spokeswoman for Revenue said.
“LPT requires property owners to submit a return to Revenue, and we are very conscious that this can cause a degree of worry and stress for property owners who do not have a reason to engage directly with Revenue on an ongoing basis.
“Revenue is also very conscious that this is the first revaluation for LPT since it was first introduced over eight years ago. In light of this and having regard to the fact that the return filing deadline falls on Sunday, Revenue has extended the LPT return filing deadline.”
Tax helpline
Revenue says that €71 million in tax has already been paid and €273 million in new payment arrangements has been put in place. Of the returns filed to date, more than half (52.7 per cent) valued their homes at under €262,500, with just over a fifth (21.5 per cent) valuing their property at €262,501-€350,000 . The majority (85.8 per cent) of those who have submitted their returns own just one property.
Just over half of property owners (51.7 per cent) have paid by annual or monthly direct debit; 27.1 per cent have paid by credit or debit card; while just 1 per cent paid by cash or cheque, with the remaining payments either deducted at source (11.4 per cent) or paid by a service provider (8.8 per cent).
The tax office said it had fielded more than 80,000 calls to its LPT helpline this week, bringing to 264,300 the total number of calls to date. It has received 40,900 pieces of correspondence so far, including 15,000 this week alone.
The Government has reduced the rate of the tax so that most homeowners should see no change in their local property tax bill despite a sharp rise in the value of their homes since 2013.
A spokeswoman for the tax office said that property owners who had submitted a written query to Revenue on their LPT obligations – either online or by post – would be treated as having complied with the deadline for filing a return, “provided they file their return promptly as soon as their query is resolved”.
Filing a return
Revenue again advised that the easiest way to file an LPT return was online, noting that 93 per cent of all returns to date have been online.
Local property tax helpline phones will be manned over the weekend to facilitate callers. The helpline, 01-7383626, is open on Friday, 8am-4.30pm. It will operate 9.30am-1:30pm on both Saturday and Sunday and 8am-8pm on Monday and Tuesday. On the new deadline day, the helpline will be available 8am-5pm.
Revenue initially sent out 1.4 million letters – either physically or via its online service – to the owners of almost two million properties in the State.
If homeowners fail to file a return by the deadline, Revenue will default to the proposed valuation for the property that they have included in each of the letters sent out to property owners.
