THE REPORT BY the expert group set up to examine the forthcoming property tax will be presented to cabinet shorty, the Department of Environment has said.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan set up an inter-departmental expert group to examine property tax proposals at the beginning of the year and received its final report over the summer.
But so far its findings have not been made public.
Today the group, Smart Taxes Network, suggested the government may be suppressing the report because it proposes a site value tax, a claim the Department of Environment denied.
“The report will be brought to Cabinet in the near future, it will be done shortly,” a spokesperson said when asked about the suggestion that the report was being held back by the Smart Taxes Network which advocates for the introduction of a site value tax.
The idea, which has been developed by a number of leading economists and commentators including Constantin Gurdgiev and Ronan Lyons, involves the property tax being calculated based on the value of the land rather than the value of the property.
The government has so far insisted that all that has been decided so far about the tax is that it will be collected by the Revenue Commissioners and will come into effect in the middle of next year.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan has ruled out a property tax that is levied based on 0.5 per cent of the value of a house, an idea which has support from the IMF but has been described by Noonan as “far too high”.
The Smart Taxes Network is holding a public debate in Trintiy College Dublin tonight at 7.30pm.
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