THE NEW REVENUE website to gauge how much property tax homeowners should pay cost €48,250, Michael Noonan has said.
The Minister for Finance said the figure included development cost and external advice, but does not include staff time and costs which were tied into more general work by employees on the Local Property Tax.
The website has received 688,000 hits in its first two weeks – although Revenue did not say whether the figure was unique users or page views.
The latest figures from Revenue show just over 7,000 people have paid the property tax in its first fortnight.
The most recent figures available for a publicly funded website came from the site to mark Ireland’s presidency of the European Union. The government defended the €244,741 cost of Eu2013.ie, saying that it had been developed through a tendering process by the Department of Foreign Affairs and contained more than 2,500 pages.
In response to a question from Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Michael Noonan said he was very happy with the finished website.
“I am completely satisfied that the Revenue valuation guidance is fit for purpose and performs at least equally well, if not better, than other sources of valuation information that are available,” he said.
“I am confident that the Revenue valuation guidance will be useful for the majority of property owners in assisting them to value their homes”.
The website asks users for their property’s type – such as bungalow or terraced – as well as its age and location. It then gives a guide as to how much the homeowner should be paying in property tax, which has to be paid by May.
Revenue has repeatedly emphasised that the onus is on homeowners to ensure they input correct information about their property and pay the correct amount of tax.
“All Revenue is asking is that people engage honestly and reasonably with the self assessment process,” Revenue said last week.
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