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Government told IMF it is considering “flat” property tax
Read more about: Economy, NAMA 
From the just released IMF annual surveillance report on Ireland –
The authorities agreed that property taxation would also help broaden the tax base while at the same time making it more stable than the current system of stamp duties. In the transition to a valuation-based tax, a flat tax rate is under consideration.
If you haven’t done the valuation work, then a “flat” tax can only mean some kind of levy per house. A poll tax done as a house tax. Is this what the government meant to communicate?
Incidentally, the IMF team also sought to disabuse the government of the notion that NAMA could somehow “time” the property market. It is too big to time the market. It is the market. It will have to start selling some properties, soon. No doubt there are more nuggets buried in this report.
UPDATE 22 JULY — Irish Times
While neither a property tax nor water charges are likely to be announced in the budget, there remains a possibility that the Government may impose some indirect taxes in the form of a flat-rate household service charge. While politically unpopular, this might be explored.
You read it here first. The government is thinking about a community charge or poll tax. Thatcherism how are ya?
Bravo! A house is a house after all. Why should JP Mcmanus have to pay more on his pad in Limerick than anyone else? Anything else would be a clear disincentive to accumulation of fabulous wealth.
I think this report will be largly ignored, it was prepared in conjunction with irish civil servants and any adverse or unhelpful comments will be expressed so vaguely that the spin doctors will have no trouble proving that IMF love us and we are a model country, and any suggestion of poll taxes will be left to the next govt
A high-profile new tax that lumps (say) former council houses and farming homesteads in with McMansions cannot do much to help FF’s vote, particularly as there is hyper-awareness now of how the great unwashed are being forced to bail out the D4 classes. I don’t expect to see it.
The only explanations I can think of are (1) it’s a poorly phrased sentence that mixed up rates and valuations and/or (2) the government was pitching the fixed water charges (as opposed to metered) as being somehow related to their property tax strategy.