Reaction to property tax

I've been listening to the reactions of peoples to the property tax letters on the radio. To me the reactions are the initial proof that the Irish government has made a huge mistake trying to impose a high property tax on the people of Ireland.
One set of people are ringing in complaining that their property isnt valued high enough and another set are ringing in saying that the property is not valued low enough. The people ringing in are pure irrate at the revenue for not getting thier property values right and are saying that Daft.ie is more accurate then the revenue estimates.
Like I was saying in previous articles, people in Ireland are used to getting their net income and been told how much tax they owe especially if they are PAYE workers. But with the property tax you have to look at your own circumstances and calulate the tax yourself. This is a huge change for people.
Its the reason people are been so angry with the revenue and in a way they are right. If you develop a culture of not having to claculate your own tax then trying to impose such a fundamental change then it is bound to be met with resisitence
Anyone who has dealt with the revenue knows that they always use estimates. The estimates are just a way of establishing a debt which they can enforce. However they will always come back looking for the correct figure. There are millions of houses in Ireland so there is no way they can independently value each house. So they produce estimates which will on average over the size of the population give a mean value which will be apporximatley correct. Remember the revenue is unlike most government agencies and is in fact run quite cost effectively (okay not in all circumstances but certainly better than most government bodies). As a result the benefits of incurring the costs of valuing each individual house would not be justified so instead they work with estimates and risk analysis and reporting by exception.
It is up to each individual tax payer to put in a correct return as best they can. After all no matter what figure you come up with its only an estimate on your part as well. Because who knows how much any particular house would sell for in a depressed housing market.
The revenues work is based on risk analysis. So they will look at all the returns in total and determine which ones are the most likely to be wrong and then they investigate them. So fr a basic example if everyone in your street values their house in and around 200,000 to just say 300,000 (covering two value bands) and your house is valued at 50000 then you may expect to come up as someone to look into. If you can explain the reason for the difference then they will accept it generally.
In all likely hood the returns they will follow up are ones selected from a random sample and ones of a high value where the individual tax is likely to be high enough to justify chasing up any tax under paid.
My point really is that the Irish government have opened up a mine field for the revenue commissioners to step into.
Author Frank McGivney 13 March 2013 All rights retained by author