Call for some commercial rates to stay under €10,000
Cllr Peter Flynn raised the issue at last week's meeting of Mayo Co Council.
A Mayo councillor has called on the local authority not to charge any more than €10,000 in commercial rates to certain rate-payers who have not paid more than that sum in the past.
In a notice of motion at last week's council meeting, Fine Gael Cllr Peter Flynn proposed that "any ratepayer liable for a rates bill of €10,000 in 2023 (old valuations) pay no more in 2025 if they lodged an appeal/revision of any type with Tailte Éireann pre-December 31st, 2024". He also asked that the effects of the motion be accounted for in the council's draft budget for 2025.
In a written response, the council's Director of Finance said there is no statutory provision to support the members passing a resolution that would impact on the annual budget outside of the statutory budget process. However, if members wanted to consider this, the Director of Finance pointed out that basing a decision on old valuations would not be correct as in 2023 all commercial properties in the county were revalued, with the new valuations coming into effect in 2024. Prior to this, properties were valued at varying times as businesses were established or extended, and in some cases, were not subject to a revised valuation for years or even decades. The revaluation, therefore, updated all valuations to provide "equity and consistency" between the values of similar properties, with all properties in the county valued at the same time.
He added that the valuation process takes account of movements in rental values across different sectors and locations and reflects local economic factors and trading conditions "bringing an equity and consistency that may not have been present prior to the revaluation".
Mr Duggan provided figures to show that a total of 1,840 properties were affected in terms of their previous rates coming in at €10,000 or less and now being in excess of that figure, with the total increased yield in commercial rates for these properties amounting to an extra €2,650,758 for the council.
He added that any appeals allowed would revert the rate charge according to the original valuation and it was not possible to estimate how many businesses would opt for this approach and how much the cost of such revisions would amount to.
The motion reverts back to pre-evaluation valuations which perpetuates any inconsistencies that may have existed due to properties being valued at different times in the past.”
