€7.5k surcharge for late payment of LPT!

A

amgd28

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I sold a property (NPPR) November 2014. I have historically been extremely diligent in discharging my tax returns and payment of NPPR, LPT etc. As the house was sold in 2014, I assumed I had no LPT liability for that property in 2015. Indeed my LPT online indicated everything was hunky dory, no outstanding liabilities, my own PPR fully up to date etc.

I get an alert from my Financial Controller (I am a proprietary director of a company) to say our Tax Clearance cert is being held up due to some issue relating to me. I call revenue to figure out, and it turns out I am liable for 2015 LPT for the house sold in 2014. Whilst it stuck in the craw, I immediately paid the €344 due by going to the post office (I couldn't do it online as it wasn't appearing in the online LPT against me). The lady from Revenue apologised for the surprise and that it was obviously not my fault as I had not been notified by Revenue of the obligation. She said there would be no question of an interest or penalty due to the circumstances.

End of October (before the Tax Clearance issue above came up) my tax return is filed and shows a refund due of €2.5k. Looking forward to the refund as we could do with it.

Last Friday I get a Notice of Assessment from Revenue, with an LPT surcharge of over €7,500, meaning I now owe revenue over €5k rather than receiving refund of €2.5k

Rang Revenue immediately to discuss, and was told by the LPT people that it was out of their hands, that there is a "surcharge group" who decide these figures. She said the surcharge on mine was the highest she had heard, and that she saw no justification for it, but that all she could do was write to the group.

This is madness
 
I am all for heavy penalties for people who don't pay their Local Property Tax. But it must be proportional.

Anyone can make a mistake or forget to pay it. Even if someone deliberately didn't pay an amount of €344 , it is completely wrong to impose a penalty of €7,500.

Brendan
 
The liability date for 2015 was 1 November 2014. Your solicitor should have advised you of this.

Once the LPT is paid you can contact Revenue and the surcharge is reduced to the amount of the LPT liability.
 
1 November 2015 was the date for determining who is liable to pay LPT for 2016 !!
 
Thanks for all the replies - Joe_90, that link is very helpful thanks. The LPT was paid before the Notice of Assessment was issued. Still no formal feedback from Revenue but will keep trying
 
I called LPT again on Monday and they noted they hadn't written to the Income Tax region to clarify matters yet, that it would be referred to a special "Surcharge" group in lPT who would then write to the local office and I would get a revised notice of assessment soon.

I excitedly saw a new communication from Revenue on ROS this morning and went and checked on my new Notice of Assessment - SURCHARGE INCREASED TO 7,900!!!!!!! I'm a bit stunned
 
Hi amgd28,

Your situation does seem to crazy. That level of surcharge is beyond mind boggling.
Whilst obviously there was a mistake with payment of the LPT (which has since has been rectified) it seems crazy that the Revenue will not give your company a tax clearance cert because of this. So while you personally may have a liability it seems extremely harsh that it can also impact your company. I hope not having the tax clearance cert does not impact your company.

Hopefully common sense will prevail and the Revenue will reduce to the surcharge to the legal limit.
If not then your only option is to appeal the surcharge to the Appeal Commissioners. Though this may well prove to be a slow process.
Also I would recommend that you ask the Revenue to write to you to clarify the precise basis of the Surcharge.
 
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