Govt urged to fund cost of local services
The Government has been urged to fund the cost of local services or come up with a new tax system that allows local authorities to raise the money themselves.
They are now earning more than half a billion euros in infrastructure contributions from property developers per year.
But the business lobby group Chambers Ireland says this can't last.
Chief executive John Dunne said today what is needed is a separate property tax paid by everyone.
“The tax would be based perhaps on how the land is zoned, so if it were agricultural land the tax would be quite low; if it's prime development land the tax would be quite high,” he said.
“There are numerous advantages to a system like this and our belief is, given that the Government has so much money at the moment now's a great opportunity to re-balance the tax system by introducing this tax and at the same time reducing other taxes.”
