While most, if not all homeowners in the country are financially hard-pressed at the moment, Brian Cowen justified the tax by comparing it to the second home / holiday home tax that was introduced last year “It was a simple tax, it was complied with and it worked well. We have got to look at other areas such as that ... not because you're trying to just impose taxes for the sake of imposing taxes -- we have got to keep expenditure down”. Not only that but he also said that he said, “in hindsight, he should have introduced a property tax to cool the property boom.”
With statements like that the reaction and comments came swiftly from a not so pleased public. “Haven't people already paid enough tax on their property? How much have they paid in VAT and stamp duty - excluding first time buyers? In fact, any more taxes on property would further the case for renting“… “His comments are nothing to do with "learning from mistakes" and everything to do with "how do we justify more taxes".”
Although this is the umpteen time that this property tax has been mentioned it is still not clear when the tax will be introduced, how much it will cost each household and how it will be calculated.
