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GOVERNMENT WILL OPPOSE a motion by Sinn Féin today to increase stamp duty on the bulk purchase of homes by investment funds.
The motion will seek to implement a punitive tax (in this case stamp duty) of at least 17% on the purchase of homes by investment funds to stop the practice of bulk buying. Currently stamp duty is charged at 10% for such sales.
The move comes after it was reported by the Business Post last week that an investment fund had bought 46 out of 54 homes (85%) in a new housing estate in north Dublin.
Finance Minister Michael McGrath got agreement at Cabinet yesterday on a counter motion to the Sinn Féin Private motion which will be debated tonight.
The standard rates of stamp duty on residential property are 1% on values up to €1 million and 2% on values exceeding €1 million.
A higher 10% rate of duty comes in when someone acquires at least 10 properties during any 12-month period.
In May 2021 the government introduced a 10% stamp duty on the bulk purchase of family homes by investment funds.
However, in July 2021, the Government passed a controversial amendment to allow funds to side-step the 10% stamp duty if they lease back homes to the State for social housing.
While the government says the measure has proven to be a “significant disincentive”, Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the funds are driving up rent and house prices.
Raising the case of Belcamp Manor, he said the homes will now be rented out for over €3,000 a month.
The issue was raised during Leaders’ Questions today, with Sinn Féín leader Mary Lou McDonald stating that “vulture funds” are continuing to snap up family homes across Ireland.
“Despite your promises to the contrary, vulture funds continue to snap up family homes.
“Of course you didn’t touch the sweetheart financial arrangements afforded to these funds by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, which sees them pay no capital gains tax and not a single red cent on their obscene rental incomes.
“The truth is government policy enables and encourages these funds,” she said, adding that it is a “real kick in the teeth for those who have scrimped and saved and sacrificed for years to buy a home”.
Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys defended the government’s efforts to clamp down on investment funds buying up properties.
Speaking during leaders’ questions, the Cavan and Monaghan TD said the issue represents around 1% of new homes
“Some 30,000 new homes built in the last year, the number of planning permissions is way up, the number of commencements is way up.
“Mortgage approvals are at a record high, 500 first time buyers are drawing down their mortgages every single week,” Humphreys added.
“The policies of this government are working, compared to your own policies.
“Like what does Sinn Fein want to do, you want to abolish the Help to Buy scheme and that actually helped over 28,000 first -time buyers to get their keys last year, and you want to get rid of that.”
The government’s countermoton to be debated this evening sets out that institutional investment in commercial and residential property is “critically important” to generating the additional supply of homes.
It also sets out that institutional investors account for a relatively small share of the residential property market, accounting for 9% of total purchases in 2022, and 4% of all houses.
The government states that the majority of institutional purchases are being built to order for the rental sector and are not at the expense of first time buyers.
“Without the institutional investment it is highly likely that the scheme would never be built,” states the countermotion, which adds that the government is committed to ensuring that newly built houses are available to first-time buyers and owner-occupiers.
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Isnt god wonderful….
No….The universe is wonderful.
Your obviously more religous than scientific otherwise you would know your so called God did not create the Universe. Or this World for that matter.
I think there was a slight hint of sarcasm in James’s comment which you all missed
Nice work putting the caption over the actual object in the image…
Erhhhhhh…….they didn’t. Its above the word “at” in the caption right on the edge of the outer ring.
Infinitesmily grand!
Is that we’re the little bo***x Fitzpatrick comes from????
The world is flat, one god created all this and we don’t know who created him/her/it?
I’ve got your ring and new moon right here.
God
Invisible pink unicorn
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE CANNOT BE ETERNAL because it could not have sustained itself eternally due to the law of entropy (increasing net energy decay, even in an open system). Einstein showed that space, matter, and time all are physical and all had a beginning. Space even produces particles because it’s actually something, not nothing. Even time had a beginning! Time is not eternal.
The law of entropy doesn’t allow the universe to be eternal. If the universe were eternal, everything, including time (which modern science has shown is as physical as mass and space), would have become totally entropied by now and the entire universe would have ended in a uniform heat death a long, long time ago. The fact that this hasn’t happened already is powerful evidence for a beginning to the universe.
Popular atheistic scientist Stephen Hawking admits that the universe had a beginning and came from nothing but he believes that nothing became something by a natural process yet to be discovered. That’s not rational thinking at all, and it also would be making the effect greater than its cause to say that nothing created something. The beginning had to be of supernatural origin because natural laws and processes do not have the ability to bring something into existence from nothing. What about the Higgs boson (the so-called “God Particle”)? The Higgs boson does not create mass from nothing, but rather it converts energy into mass. Einstein showed that all matter is some form of energy.
The supernatural cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence and power for the origin and order of the universe. Where did God come from? Obviously, unlike the universe, God’s nature doesn’t require a beginning.
EXPLAINING HOW AN AIRPLANE WORKS doesn’t mean no one made the airplane. Explaining how life or the universe works doesn’t mean there was no Maker behind them. Natural laws may explain how the order in the universe works and operates, but mere undirected natural laws cannot explain the origin of that order. Once you have a complete and living cell then the genetic code and biological machinery exist to direct the formation of more cells, but how could life or the cell have naturally originated when no directing code and mechanisms existed in nature? Read my Internet article: HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM.
WHAT IS SCIENCE? Science simply is knowledge based on observation. No one observed the universe coming by chance or by design, by creation or by evolution. These are positions of faith. The issue is which faith the scientific evidence best supports.
Some things don’t need experiment or scientific proof. In law there is a dictum called prima facie evidence. It means “evidence that speaks for itself.”
An example of a true prima facie would be if you discovered an elaborate sand castle on the beach. You don’t have to experiment to know that it came by design and not by the chance forces of wind and water.
If you discovered a romantic letter or message written in the sand, you don’t have to experiment to know that it was by design and not because a stick randomly carried by wind put it there. You naturally assume that an intelligent and rational being was responsible.
I encourage all to read my popular Internet articles: NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION and HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM
Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION
Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)
Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS
*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I’ve been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis “Who’s Who in The East” for my writings on religion and science.
Wake me up when you’ve finished the lecture. Time and place. This is neither.
There’s a spacecraft leaving tomorrow for it be on it the lot of you
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