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Updated 1.20pm
REVENUE HAS CONFIRMED that some homeowners whose properties were damaged by the extensive flooding in recent weeks can apply to have their local property tax deferred this year.
Any person who is in receipt of support from the Department of Social Protection’s humanitarian relief fund can apply to have their 2016 property tax payment deferred.
Revenue said this can be done regardless of whether or not a household qualifies for a deferral under the normal criteria.
Around 160 households have been in receipt of the humanitarian relief fund which includes emergency income support as well as items like food, clothing, toiletries and fuel.
The Department said the cost of the support provided to date has been €145,000.
Meanwhile, homeowners whose properties have been damaged by the recent spate of flooding are able to apply for a reduction in their property tax if the value has been impacted.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan said yesterday that while there are no plans to give an across-the-board exemption to affected homeowners they can apply to have the value of their house reassessed.
This raises the prospect of a householder’s property tax being reduced or, if their home is damaged beyond repair, cancelled.
Hundreds of homes across the midlands, west and south-west have been damaged by floodwaters over the past four weeks as river levels have risen, particularly along the Shannon.
Noonan said that as property tax is self-assessed a householder who believes the value of their property has diminished or been cancelled by the flooding can submit a valuation “commensurate with that”.
“So it’s already within the legal base of the property tax to allow householders to deal with reducing values from any extraneous event, including flooding,” Noonan told reporters yesterday.
Guidance from Revenue, which administers the property tax, says the location of a house and its risk of flooding are factors which “are likely to impact on market value of a property”. Revenue says these factors should be taken into account when valuing a property.
But Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin said that the Department of Social Protection’s humanitarian assistance fund can provide more immediate relief to affected homeowners.
He said it is “much easier” for officials to see the damage and give a cash payment to those affected, rather than go through the process of legislative change and then assessment of properties.
The government has already decided to freeze local property tax until 2019 following a recommendation from an expert group examining the tax which was first introduced by the government 2013.
Revenue also said that business owners who have been affected by the flooding should contact the Collector-General’s office to agree additional time to file tax returns and make payments.
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I mean yeah the lad probably shouldnt have flown close enough to steal a chip but also Russia is quite a good deal closer to the Baltic than the USA. So close in fact that they have a seaport and a major city on it, while the USA is several thousand miles away. USAF hardly taking recon pics of fish.
@stephen: They’re doing lots of training with their NATO allies.
Maybe he was just trying to tell the yank he’d taken a wrong turn…’our submarine base is over that direction’…only sayin!
Given the content of this article any chance The Journal could also report of the NATO jet that buzzed the Russian Defence Ministers plane earlier today ?
Right up beside it and they would have known very well it was a Russian government jet.
Whatever you can say about the posturing both do with military planes involved but to send a fighter jet up to a unarmed Russian government plane seems to be delivering a slightly sinister and not so subtle message.
Did Goose get a polaroid picture of the Russian pilot?
War games
I think the the story needs to add more weight to the fact a US spy plane was operating a few minutes flying time from Russian airspace.
@Aidan O’Donovan: Russian military planes are frequently intercepted off the coast of Alaska, USA
@Diaspora’d: all about the lens your using. Alaska is off the Coast of Russia! The Baltic ain’t near any part of the US, they’re all at this all the time. No biggie
@Diaspora’d: lol Russia is only a couple of miles from Alaska
But was he inverted?
Putin and the Russians have more restraint than any other nation on earth. If the tables were reversed, WWIII would already be on…….
@Patrick Kavanagh: agreed, the US nearly brought the world to nuclear apocalypse in 1960 because the russians moved missiles to cuba, a stone from the yanks. And now nato which is basically the us are building bases and pointing missiles towards russia & they want us to believe the russians are the threat
@Frank McGonigal: ..and the US president responsible was feted and fawned over just a year later when he visited Ireland in 1963.
What was the Russian pilot doing so far from home?
@George Vladisavljevic: Probably out of Kaliningrad.
This headline is a quote from a US military spokesman. I guess it must be true then!!
At the speed they would be traveling at and with only 5′ of clearance between both aircraft all it would have taken to bring both planes down would have a a gust of wind at the wrong time, turbulence or the slightest error of movement by either pilot.
I believe it’s standard practice for all planes to use a transponder, a device that alerts other planes in the vicinity of their presence when they may not be able to see them. It’s worth remembering that no pilot wants to have another plane, commercial or military, accidently fly into them. Russian planes routinely turn their transponders off making them a risk for all air traffic.
@Rusty Balls: yet you likely believe the US spying reconnaissance plane had its on while in Russias back yard!
@Rusty Balls: at the speed they fly at transponders aren’t going to be much use even if they were on.
u wouldnt have seen US spy planes within a 1000 miles of russia 30 years ago. bloody cheek of the yanks in this case
@gregory: Their training with their NATO allies. You know, the countries that broke from the Soviet Union and have no wish to return. Why are these countries so determined to ally themselves with ‘the west’ and not Russia?
@Honeybadger197:
David Hasselhoff
@Thinck: Keep that to yourself though. Say nuthin’…
https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense/status/873260044317593600
Heres a few photos.
@Honeybadger197: A lot more than 5′ between those planes.
@Mick Jordan: Certainly is. Nice photos though. Serious selection of bombers.
@Honeybadger197: thats not it. Different plane different day.
@TeaRex: You’re 100% correct. Apologies.
@Honeybadger197: still great photos though
@Honeybadger197: Great pics. I liked the joke by USDoD in the comments as well.
@Honeybadger197: no need for apologies! They are great photos though!!
I dont see the report mentioning where exactly it happened, other than international airspace. Was it just outside Russian airspace, in which case it was the American pilot was flying too close to a Russian plane.
The Russian pilot should have gone to Specsavers…..
What’s the issue here? If Russian spy planes were flying so close to American air space you can bet your ass they would scramble fights to intercept them.
Pot, kettle, black.
@David Ronan: Its the distance they came to that the US are giving out about. It was simply a stupid thing to do. Both planes could have been brought down by the smallest error or nature.
@Mick Jordan: were the Americans stupid for shooting the Syrian plane out of the sky in Syria this week?
@Cal Mooney: Not if they were defending members of their Special Forces from attack by the Syrian Air Force.
@Cal Mooney: No they were absolutely correct.
@Cal Mooney: you’re wasting your time here Cal….America=great lads altogether, Russia=terrible lads altogether. Sure it even said it on the news. The boys know their stuff.
@Mick Jordan: They never claimed they were protecting members of their special forces but do you think it’s legally OK for a country to shoot down a plane inside that jets own sovereign territory when the aggressor has no legitimate or legal right to be there at the moment?
A nation that is not legally merited to be inside another country has no legitimate claim to use the reasoning of ‘self defence’ at all anyways. Coming legally speaking, not opinionated points of view.
@Andy Brown: sadly different rules and standards are applied to here when asserting who’s right or wrong as usual. West = good, East = bad. Asides from operating illegally without invitation by the Syrian gov., the US has for 5 years now been training, arming and supporting the ‘rebels’ fighting against the Syrian army while ensuring they’re well supplies and enforcing embargoes on Syrian forces restocking supplies. In that time ISIS got to run amuck as the army where kept busy battling western backed foreign invaders under a long changing array of names. The Syrians still and understandable see all forces as illegal and legitimate targets as any country would. The US and our media have been busy ensuring we don’t make the above association and accept US are solely there to fight IS.
Pretty s**t spy plane.
The usual shit from the war mongers . Why can’t they stay at home and kill their own .
American shit.
@Brendan Keegan: Nice abusive comment there, did you ever wonder why these former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries rush to join NATO ? Russia is there nearest neighbor yet they can’t wait to join NATO
Keeping up foreign relations. Yes, I know the finger Goose.
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