More than 1,500 homeowners in Galway have deferred payment of the Local Property Tax (LPT) because they cannot afford it.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan has confirmed that some 428 householders in Galway City have deferred the LPT, and some 1,137 homeowners in County Galway have deferred the property tax.
The total number of deferred property tax in Galway in 2016 was 1,565 – or 1.4 per cent which also mean Galway city had the lowest rate of defferals in the country.
It includes people who applied for a deferral because they incurred large expenses due to flooding. The tax is paid to the City and County Councils directly.
There are four reasons people can defer the tax: income threshold, insolvency, hardship and if you are the executor of a will of a deceased person who is liable.
The income threshold below which a single person can defer the LPT is €15,000 or €25,000 for a couple.
Homeowners can apply for a deferral if they have an insolvency arrangement.
If you can’t afford to pay the tax, based on hardship, due to a change in your financial situation because of unexpected losses or expenses such as medical, major repairs to the house, losing your job, self-employed bad debt, and expenses connected with a serious accident and death of a family member.
Nationally, more than 36,000 householders applied to have their LPT tax deferred. Nationally, in the past seven months, Revenue has issued 290,000 compliance letters about LPT payments, while full debt collection or enforcement action is being taken in 590 cases.
The annual cost of LPT ranges from the standard rate of €90 for homes worth under €100,000 up to €3,050 for homes with a value of more than €1.5 million.