Property Tax Penalties

The deadline  for the return of the 2014 Property Tax  payment  confirmation forms (LPT1A)  –  was November 29th 2013.  It is still not too late to return your forms – Revenue say they will only start applying interest from 31st March 2014.  If you still haven’t done your 2013 Property Tax return – you can avoid interest and further penalties if you get it done before 31st March 2014.

You can see a list of the Property Tax Amounts here

Property Tax Penalties

There are penalties that Revenue can apply for various reasons – but they have always said that penalties will not be applied automatically – Revenue say they will attempt to contact the liable person first.

Late Payment Penalty
The legislation allows for interest to be charged on late payment of the property tax.  The rate of interest is 0.0219% a day i.e. 8% per year .
Up to now Revenue have not applied interest charges on late payments – but they have warned non payers that interest charges will be added if payments are not sorted out by March 31st 2014.

Revenue have recently announced  (Feb 2014) that interest charges will start to be be made if home owners do not sort out their 2013 and 2014  LPT registration and payment arrangements by March 31st 2014. The rat of interest will be 8% per annum.

Interest of 8% on LPT of €405 would be  €32.40 for a full year.

More about Paying the Property Tax Here

Other Property Tax Penalties

A penalty equal to the amount of  Local Property Tax that would have been  payable (capped at  €3,000) may be imposed in the following cases.

a) If a  liable person fails to send back  (or electronically  file)  a property tax return. (The legislation does not mention penalties for late returns)

b) If an incomplete return is sent and the person  fails to supply the missing information within a reasonable time of being requested to do so.

c) If a false return is filled in

So – if someone declares the value of their house to be in band 1 (€90 a year) when it should be in band 5 (€495 a year) – and they get caught out  – the penalty would be €495 .
The penalty cap of €3000 benefits those in more expensive homes- for example : If someone who has a house worth €4 Million declares it to be worth only €1 million. If they get caught – their correct full years property tax will be €9300 but their penalty will be just €3000.

A penalty of €100 a day (max €3000) may be applied to any relevant person or company that doesn’t supply information requested by Revenue ( Information such as the owners name, property size, etc). This is aimed at companies and organisations like An Post, ESB , Bord Gais , HSE  etc . Not individual homeowners.

If a penalty is imposed, it will be  treated as an amount of outstanding Local Property Tax and may be recovered in the same manner as the tax.
While the Revenue Commissioners may choose to recover the amount of any penalty by means of court proceedings, they are not restricted to this method of recovery.

Any Local Property Tax or penalty that remains unpaid will become a charge on the property to which it relates and will have to be discharged to the Revenue Commissioners on the sale or transfer of the property.

Penalties on Employers
The Property Tax can be deducted at source from wages – but if employers don’t deduct amounts as instructed or don’t keep records of deductions – they may face a €3000 penalty.

More information about the Property Tax here