Registration for, and payment of, the Household Tax has collapsed since the Government deadline on March 31.
The admission today by the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) that only 8,000 online registrations have been recorded in four days clearly shows this. The Agency relies on post received from before the deadline to try and make their figures look more convincing. Even so, it still leaves less than 50% registered out of the most credible estimate of 1.8 million houses.
Agency continues to spin numbers of houses required to register:
“The LGMA continues to use figures that are seriously distorted in order to make the percentage of householders registering and paying look better than the reality. Today’s Agency figures flatter to deceive,” said Ruth Coppinger of the CAHWT.
“LGMA Chief Executive, Paul McSweeney, on radio claims that the 1,654,208 households recorded in the 2011 census justifies the Government figure of 1.6 million households being required to pay the tax. However the legislation requires that, not households, but houses must be registered. Therefore the figures worked out by Robert Kitchin of Maynooth College and based on Census 2011 are far more credible. Those figures show almost 2 million houses, and leaving out local authority houses and other categories which do not have to be registered, give a figure of about 1.8 million required to be registered.”
“Resistance to the Home Tax remains at a major level. Considering that many of those who have registered and paid did so out of fear and feeling coerced, the government should realise it faces a fight here that it cannot win and should now reconsider and abolish the tax,” said Ruth Coppinger.
