Ciaran Cuffe, the Minister for Planning, has shown that he is unaware of his party policy on planning. In a post on his Cuffe Street blog, Cuffe commented:
There’s no easy way to fill the gap, but an alternative to a hike in income tax rates on middle income earners would be to take the radical step of abolishing (or dramatically reducing) stamp duty on homes and introduce an annual levy based on the size of the house. Maybe large homes could pay €600 a year, medium sized home €400 and smaller home €200. How would you define this? A home over 200 sq.m might be at the larger end of things, and under 100 sq. m could be in the smaller category. It all could be done by self-assessment. If home-owners couldn’t pay, then the levy could remain as a charge on the home when it eventually changed hands.
What’s funny about this is that it takes a few recommendations from the Site Value Tax proposals, namely, a) allowing for the charge to be deferred until the property changes hands and b) using it to replace stamp duty. It does of course, go against Party policy, and Cuffe duly removed the offending musings from his blog, though it’s still available on the Green Party feed aggregator.
