Just under 600 people paid the property tax in its first week, according to figures released by the Revenue Commissioners late last week.
The stats from the Revenue also revealed that almost 2,000 calls have been made to the dedicated helpline from homeowners with queries about the new tax while 178,000 letters have been issued to residential property owners with a form and a guide to the tax.
The figures also show that Revenue’s website to calculate how much a property is worth and therefore how much tax it will pay has received more than 600,000 hits in just five days. Revenue did not specify whether ‘hits’ covered page views or unique visitors..
Revenue has repeatedly emphasised that the onus will be on homeowners to ensure that they’re inputting the correct information about their property and paying the correct amount of tax.
“All Revenue is asking is that people engage honestly and reasonably with the self assessment process,” Revenue said in a statement.
The property tax was announced in Budget 2013. Homeowners will have to pay the tax for the first time for the second half of this year.
The deadline for paper returns is 7 May while for electronic returns the final date for submission is 28 May.
