Well done that man. Should be elected to Leinster house. We need some who will speak the truth.

BOOM!!! like a BOSS!!!

Is this something to be proud about , what a situation we find ourselves in .

Does the old man realise that his pension is being paid for by borrowed money from the Troika?

It doesn’t matter that he refuses to pay. The tax will simply stay with the house and accumulate penalties, and will be taken off whenever the ownership is transferred.

I heard ‘Age Action’ (or a similar group can’t remember) telling elderly who cannot pay property tax, not to. The claw back occurs when house is sold, which in the case of the elderly will most likely only occur when it is someone else’s problem. Don’t be hungry/cold for the sake of a property tax – leave it to ur benefactors to sort.

Patrick, can you answer why you think this letter is genuine?

A national newspaper will not publish a letter without verifying the sender’s name and address and telephone number, details which are then published.

The fact is anyone could have penned this letter.

Joe, do you realise that man paid into the national pension fund.
His generation paid for the pylons, the drainage, the railway lines, the water system and that’s just for starters.
He paid 60 pence in the pound to the state, building a state to be proud of.
The mismanagement of his legacy disgusts me.
Everything they slaved for is gone, and for what?
To pay the gambling debts of a handful of addicts.
Dress it up how you want, that’s the sad reality of it.

Joe,

Haha, a national newspaper. Don’t kid yourself, lad. The only papers we have in that country are owned by Denis O’Brien and the O’Reilly clan and they’ll never publish the dissent of the common man with their tight links to FG and FF. Anyway, newspapers are going the same way of the telegram.

The Journal is a more than reputable media outlet, more so than the brainwashing your receive from RTÉ. The man’s identity is just being protected for reasons only he and the publisher know.

Little Jim – Building a State to be proud? His generation put Fianna Fail in power for 61 of the last 79 years, a party whose economic war with Britain stagnated development in this country for decades leading to mass emigration, and which subsequently shamelessly destroyed this country and brought in the IMF when it ran out of money, to it’s eternal shame. This hypothetical man is looked after now with a State pension, free travel, free healthcare, free medicines, etc.

I’m not sure why he’s so angry, he’s certainly not sharing the same burden as young people in massive negative equity who will be carrying massive debts with them for the next 30 years of their lives, paying massive income taxes and other charges, and whose only mistake was believing their government ministers and the incessant Fianna Fail mantra that if they didn’t get on the property ladder now, they would forever be left behind.

@ag_mcnamh if age action said that then they are wrong. People are only entitled to a deferral only if 1) they are within the income limits agreed by the Revenue i.e. 15,000 for a single person, 25,000 for a couple and 2) apply to the revenue for this deferral. The elderly will not be treated any differently to anyone else in this regard. So if for example an elderly widow on 16,000 but in a nice house in Dublin feels she cannot afford the 600 or 700 annual charge she can not just decide not to pay it and leave it to her excecutors to sort out. She will be persecuted, prosecuted and criminalized like everyone else. They will not wait until she dies.

Paul,

Refusing to register or pay the Property (Home) Tax is not a criminal offence unlike the Household Charge last year where it was a summary offence. The government have learned some lessons from that debacle and the last thing they want are incendiary court cases where hard pressed citizens are prosecuted.
People should refuse to engage with the Revenue and force them to deduct it at source as a protest against this unjust tax. It is quite likely that Labour will crack and leave government if widespread deductions from peoples’ wages etc do occur as this is a recipe for industrial action and mass civil disobedience. Boycott the Home Tax and bring down the government.

Joe,

In the same post, you criticize the older generation who ‘put Fianna Fail in power for 61 of the last 79 years’
and absolve the younger people ‘ whose only mistake was believing …. the incessant Fianna Fail mantra that if they didn’t get on the property ladder now, they would forever be left behind’.
Can you see the contradiction there?

Fianna fail, blah blah.
They weren’t on their own here.
What the hell were the opposition at?
Decades of living off the fat and waiting for FF to inevitably eff up.
Then it’s into the driving seat for a bit, whinging all the way.
I’m not sure how it can be fixed but it’s clear our political system doesn’t attract the right kind of talent.

@Paul I just checked. There is a legitimate option to defer payment if your income is below a certain amount. You just fill in the LPT form with this option.

Excuse yourself Joe, how dare you!…You are so way off the mark there. My Grandad wrote this letter…Billy Cleary….and he definitely didn’t vote for Fianna Fáil!!He’s angry because he worked his whole life for nothing only to have everything taken from him time and time again…I seen this firsthand!! Now why can’t he and the other pensioners of the country, who have all already paid their dues, have to pay for the mistakes of the politicians and bankers? I can tell you it’s not their generation of politicians sitting up there now! Why does my Grandad and every pensioner in this country not deserve the chance to enjoy their golden years?Every one of them has paid enough!! Why don’t you try and support your fellow countrymen and be happy someone is speaking up and trying to fight back and help this country, instead of begrudging people. And for your information…We are trying to prevent the “carrying of massive debts for the next 30 years” …that’s what the whole point of this fight against property taz is!!!

Oh it’s real pal!!!! See those black marks on the letter??Name, address, pps no and d.o.b….He sent the letter to a newspaper and all Government heads…And it was given to someone at a protest in trim last weekend, who then posted it on Facebook…and it went viral. Not just anyone penned it….a 73 year old Pensioner, who has been stripped of his basic rights and is pretty peed off now, wrote it!! What is wrong with you??Such nasty comments…You must be secure in your life if you can patronise and begrudge others who are fed up and want to fight back!!

the letter was printed in the westmeath topic the first week of march , name and address was supplied for verification , the correspondent is well know to the editor of the topic newspaper.

Coddler I do not agree with any of this theft however I believe it is an offense not to register for the tax and there is a fine of something like 5,000 for doing so. Ag_mcnamh yes you can defer if you are under the imcome limits but you do have to register you cannot just ignore it.

You’ve missed the point – apart from the fact that in deferring you incur a 4% interest fee, the point is that this tax is unjust, as stated by Enda Kenny in 1994, and as stated by groups supporting the underpriveleged of this country. The tax is inequitable, people have already paid heavy taxes for their homes, especially those who bought or built in the last 15 years, and it is purely a revenue collecting exercise aimed at paying off the bondholders who brought this country to it’s knees. A deferrment is not an exemption and people have the right to expect the security of their own home, and to be able to pass this home on in whatever way they wish – not to have it confiscated by revenue to cover a bill which never should have existed

I take it you won’t be writing any letters to the Revenue then? Too many sheeple in Ireland, a nation of curtain twitcher’s and cowards. Shame, shame, shame.

@ Samanta Connelly

I for one would like to shake your grandfathers hand. At least he had the nut to something and stick to his guns. Sadly his experience is far from isolated. A member of my family worked hard for nearly 50 years only to have her pension lost on the property market when she was less than 6years from retirement age. Needless to say this has caused her untold stress anxiety, sleepless nights etc. And its far from confined to the elderly.

Peace out, and keep up the good fight,
my regards to your granddad

I take it you won’t be writing any letters to the Revenue then? Too many sheeple in Ireland, a nation of curtain twitcher’s and cowards. Shame, shame, shame.

Paul,

There is no €5000 fine for not registering for the Property tax and neither is it a criminal offence. The maximum penalty that anyone will pay is a doubling of the tax liability and an 8% interest charge of 8% per annum.
So if your Home tax was €100 now and the Revenue were able to enforce collection in 2014, they would charge you €208.
It is not clear whether the Revenue will have the power to deduct any penalties at source without going to court and if that is the case you lose nothing by making them come and take it if they can. They will not be able to take hundreds of thousands of people to court as the Household tax campaign last year demonstrated.
Don’t let the government propaganda scare you into submission.

CAPTA , the Campaign Against Property Tax and Austerity (formerly the anti Household tax campaign) is organising the fight against this unjust tax and the austerity program generally being imposed on the Irish people to pay for the socialisation of banking debt. Please go along to your local meetings and get involved.
http://nohouseholdtax.org/

National Protest. Next Saturday April 13th. Meeting at Parnell Square 12.30 pm to march to Dublin Castle where the EU finance ministers are meeting. Come along and let the cosy elite know how you feel about the looting of your country.

WELL DONE!

well said ….

Coddler I think you’re referring to the household charge which is as you say only doubled by July 1st or whenever. Part 14 of the LPT Bill clearly spells out the fines regarding non registering and non payment of the Property Tax which seem to be 3,000. Also it’s not correct to say that you’ve nothing else to lose except for the interest and the fines as you have to pay the court costs. If the cretins hadn’t all paid the HC of course we wouldn’t have had to worry about any of this.

G’wan Cleary and Connelly!
That’s the spirit!!

His pension is being paid from all the taxes hes paid over the years and from the interest his savings accrued over the years not to mention all the VAT he has paid in his lifetime.

The money from the Troika is paying the banks with the money thats ours to begin with.

*silence* only the sound of applause.

You have no right to call him names. You don’t have a clue who this man is so you have no right to judge him. Shame on you.

Good girl Sam, real proud of you right now standing up for daddy. These lot don’t know him and haven’t the right to judge him.

If he puts something like this out in public, maybe we can’t judge him, but we can judge his message. And the message is flawed. Threat of violence which would most likely come against lower level workers totally overshadows the first part of his message.

@ Jim, that’s rather lame and contrived. I don’t think that you are reading the letter properly.

The man paid for his house. The man paid for his pension. The man load stamp duty.

The fact that he was compelled by passion to write this letter is an indictment of this society and of its governance.

I take it that you cavil only with the your literal understanding of his rhetoric and accept the criticisms which he has eloquently expressed.

He has worked longer years than I have, received less from Ireland than I have, contributed more than I have and he deserves to be left alone. If this man’s pension is touched,I suspect that he will have immense support in his opposition to such attack.

Ah – but did the gentleman vote for all his life?

Everything he worked for was not used to pay off the gambling debts – it was used to insulate and support a corrupt and broken system.

Ireland needs a new democracy and a new constitution

Atta Girl Samantha. You are rightly proud of your Grandad. I don’t even know him, although I would like to, and I am bursting with pride for him. I have shared his letter over and over and I hope everyone else does too.

I’d like to see more of this Cleary/Connolly uprising .
Reminds me of the old days!

Joe, your Twitter profile pic is of a skull, you have no followers and you follow nobody.

That’s the most terrible attempt to troll the comments being a real person since The Journal started.

Reminds me of the garda who confronted the Taoiseach in Meath a few weeks ago. He refused to give his name to the media. It subsequently emerged that his main post is guarding Bertie Ahern’s house.

http://www.thestar.ie/star/enda-kenny-protest-garda-works-at-berties-house/

Joe and your point in that little tidbit is what?

the revolution has started in mullingar

Was at an attack the tax meeting this evening and the writer of this letter was there. He is proud of his actions and wishes for the young people of Ireland to stand behind the pensioners and fight this tax together.

Yep, in it all the way bro.

Joe, I think austerity has hit you hard, you look like your starving. Go and try and get some meat on your bones, the starvation is affecting your thoughts.

In fairness snooch, committing to a loan is kinda meaningless when you consider how much and how often the banks and the government have moved the goalposts.

Good vibrations ……….

Yoman,

I wouldn’t object to a fair and progressive Property tax which factored in an ability to pay and where the revenue gathered was directed to benefit the local community. This crude Home tax however meets none of those criteria and is in fact a deeply unfair levy on the Irish people in order to pay for the failure of speculative financial capitalism.
CAPTA , the Campaign Against Property Tax and Austerity (formerly the anti Household tax campaign) is organising the fight against this unjust tax and the austerity program generally being imposed on the Irish people to pay for the socialisation of banking debt. Please go along to your local meetings and get involved.
http://nohouseholdtax.org/

National Protest. Next Saturday April 13th. Meeting at Parnell Square 12.30 pm to march to Dublin Castle where the EU finance ministers are meeting. Come along and let the cosy elite know how you feel about the looting of your country.

Its not called council tax but property tax. Its a tax based on assets. I am not overly happy to pay taxes but we are not living in some tax free country either. The way banks were nationalised was wrong but the property taxes doesnt cover this either.

Is a house in negative equity an asset?

Yoman, Its called a local property tax to imply that the proceeds will be spent locally. They won’t. We didn’t nationalise the banks, we nationalised their debts. The property tax, the water taxes and all the other taxes and cutbacks in the austerity program are to pay for this tranfer of private illegitimate banking debt to the people.

Sorry Coddler, any Family Home tax, anywhere is wrong. Its where kids live! …you know!

1. It is not a property tax – land > 1 acre incl farms is excluded.
2. It is not a wealth tax – family homes dont earn revenue streams
3. It is not an asset tax – cant liquidate family home – no where to live.
4. It is a “Fodder tax” – treat you like plebs and tax you with most repressive legislation.

see Honohans paper on Financial Transaction tax … deemed not viable .. he would wouldnt he!
http://homepage.eircom.net/~phonohan/FinTransTaxAug.pdf
————————————————————
yes – legislation passed by YOUR TD will take the property off your family when you die.
Work out penalties and 4% interest pa on outstanding tax which will rise to EU average of €1,800 pa (France avg). Where have you seen this sort of Government in recent history?
———————————————————–
Pensioner (not 73) started internet ePetition to Repeal this most despicable law.
http://www.LocalPropertyTaxPetition.net

@ Ross, fine words, fine sentiments and never more true than today. Thanks for the quotation. It is good to be reminded of a more noble time and of more noble people.

by the same token my kidney is an asset. should they decide to tax it can i live without it

Read the letter again. The scenario he describes is disgraceful . That someone in his circumstances should be forced into this action is disgraceful. Is the truth disgraceful?

@Brian Daly. What is that poor man to do? He is at the end of his tether! Your comment is asinine, however, I do have a greater admiration for the company you work for;) betapond. Hope things are good there.

Brian I’d say that a pensioner resorts to such a letter is the disgrace that reflects very badly on Enda and co.

Your comment is misguided. It is disgraceful that he has resorted to threats.

Let the gambling, psychopathic criminals who caused this travesty starve first.
Let them starve before anyone puts their hand in our pockets.

i think his threatening himself,,, and know how he feels,, lose a job brian and try to pay bills and all they do is up everything,, wait for household tax to get to work,, will be tripled within 2 years,, media licence going up,, elec going up,, interest rates will go up, and banks will have to be bailed out again by the people,, open your eyes and see what is ahead,,,,

Threats are disgraceful. If he wants to threaten anyone threaten Bertie Ahern or Cowen, not normal people doing a job even if they do work for the revenue. More of the grey brigade boll!x, if I’m forced to pay it, he’s going to pay it, I don’t care if he’s 101, hes getting more than someone who was let go 6 months ago, in negative equity with 3 kids.

WOW you’re a great person see how willing at 73 you’d be to just taking something like this lying down

@Brian Daly Apathy is a disgrace aggression must be met with greater aggression or you risk annihilation

It probably took him a lot to write that letter.

Shut up Bryan!! Bout time someone stood up to them!!

I have a lot of family in the public service. Lower level public servants will be charged with the collection of this money, despite also not having caused the economic woes. Do I think the tax is fair? Absolutely not. Am I disgusted by the fact that this man might misguidedly kill someone I know for trying to do their job? Yes.

@Jim Hanley he never once said he would kill anyone. yea he did say “that he would take as many of the b…tds as he can with him” who knows wtf he has in mind to be honest he reflects the mood of a lot of people in this country. i have no problem following his example whatever that may be. perhaps you would feel different if you understood what was going on out there or were personally effected. i honestly hope he does do something serious as maybe it will shake this country up from its slumber. who knows maybe i will do the same or worse. never know ya could have the first Irish suicide bomber i am sure that someone up the country will top it whatever it is ” It must be world anarchy or world order”

Does “doing your job” excuse all?

@censored are you addressing me

You know how to talk bull, this man is not a killer thank you.

It’s nice to see someone standing up with my dad for his beliefs. I do be there when he writes these letters and he puts a lot of thought, time and heart into writing what he believes and saying what he can to stand up for the common man of this country. He’s got more balls than half the ass’s on here.

No Seamus, I am addressing the sheep who are criticizing this man’s letter. I think he should be an inspiration to us all.

I’m all for standing up for what’s right, but 2 wrongs don’t make a right. I don’t know if you lot have left your morals somewhere back along the line, but I am really disappointed at the amount of you championing his message of threatened violence. By all means do not pay, and protest. But if this man inflicts any physical harm to anyone while pursuing this campaign of non-payment, then he is no better than the people that he condemns.

And Seamus, you’re saying that you don’t know what he’s exactly talking about, but you still back him? That’s utter shite! How can you agree with someone when you don’t know what their point is?

@Jim Hanley

Hi jim
Right and wrong is completely subjective. What you and I find right and wrong obviously is not the same. I believe that if you try to placate the schoolyard bully he will only continue to taunt you. I believe it is right in that situation to fight back and destroy him. There is no point in standing up for what is right if you don’t actually make a stand for what is right. I am going to try to put this into a relevant context for you. Lets say your girlfriend was being attacked in front of you. Would it be right to us violence to protect her. Would you ask nicely to please mister don’t hurt her or would you use violence to protect her. Which one do you think would be most effective in achieving the goal. Yea by all means try to ask nicely however should the violence continue I think you would be right to use a proportional amount of force to end said violence. The government has made a concerted effort to steal people’s money. They have gone from being a government for the people to a government that is oppressing the people. Not being able to directly sequester the means of production ie slave camps they have decided that they are going after the fruits of the means of production. The soviet union tried to do this a long time ago by taking farmers horses with the result that the farmers shot and ate the horses rather then hand them over.
Should the government have the ability and they now do to take directly from peoples bank accounts wages pensions and social welfare payments then how exactly is one supposed to protest. The government has backed people into a corner and left them with no choice. They do not seem to understand that although they seem intent on handing the entire states money over to Germany that people have to live. At the moment personally speaking I would rather go to prison then pay this tax however even that option has been ruled out but out glorious furher.
As for me not knowing what this guy will do yea I don’t I do however know exactly what he is trying to do. He recognizes a tyrant when he sees it and is attempting to stop him. Whatever he does to “take down as many of the b…tads as possible” I am behind him, this is not sh..e as you so eloquently put it is fact. If the thought of suicide bombers self immolation’s or any other form of what you seem to call extreme protest seems barbaric to you maybe you should not leave your house until all this blows over. The facts are that there are hordes of very very angry people ready willing and able to perform said acts and all it is going to take Is one spark to set them off. At times like this I am reminded of the following words. “give me freedom or give me death” “He who would trade liberty for peace deserves neither and will lose both”

Morals now eh? I think anybody who suffers any harm from this man is likely to be on the wrong side of the moral equation.

Seamus – you are loolah

@Keano i am not loolah. however i say what i mean and i mean what i say irregardless of the consequences. i dont do b…hit as people who have tried to play games with me in the past have found out i am more the willing to cut my nose of to spite my face. its called have a set between your legs and not acting like a eunuch.

Billie i think what he wrote was not the wisest thing to do,but there is alot of people i know in fear of their future because of this tax.
The government and their supportors willingly ignore these people.
Jerry above is but one example.

With stamp duty rates in 2004, that amount would relate to a purchase price of around 200K, not 800K

Jerry is trying to make the 73 year old seem like a rich tax evasionist.

@Jerry. You need to explain your maths there. How does €7,000 stamp duty equate to a purchase price of €800,000? I paid 9% back in 2003?

Eoin this was a residential purchase not a commercial purchase and rates were at 9 % for properties over 645,000 euro .
Norman I would quiet gladly be in his position at the age of 73 he is sitting on a substantial property which he can sell and move into something smaller if he wish’s and have cash of 200 to 300 hundred thousand to see him out . The poor 36yr olds who bought Apts at the top of the boom and who now cant move are the ones I feel most sorry for . Most atthis age should be starting familes but due to the greed and fkup up by the FF led government of the day .

But then hi the voters are goldfish and have forgotten that and FF are back in the lead again

Most people over the age of 65 in this country are asset rich and very comfortable in comparison to the people in there 30s yet it is the young people who are been constantly screwed as they do not vote in the same numbers as there elders .

Labours problem is those elderly will vote and Labour pushed for this tax.

This day 5 years ago, Irish Senate leader Donie Cassidy urged first-time buyers to act, predicting house prices would rise 25% in 12 months.!

Nice to know Jerry you continually missed his point.But as i said his generation will remember what Labour has done and vote according.FG will feel the wrath aswell but not asmuch,the winners will be FF/SF and of course the ordinary people still the losers.

Sorry Jerry – I might be missing something here, but the tax bands are here http://www.taxworld.ie/taxes/sd/2004/summary and you are correct, properties over €645K were taxed at 9% which is €57,150. This man said he paid €7,000 which puts him in the 157K to 254K categories, as far as I can see.

Eoin,Jerry doesn’t want facts he wants to attack the authors social standing.

not sure what SF are going to offer seen as they have increased property taxes in the council areas which they control in the north maybe there mate Slab Murphy will come to the rescue with an oil washing tax

Jerry i could care less what you say about SF i feel the same about them as the rest of the “Leeches”in the Dail.But the Labour clowns are giving new impetus to SF throughout traditional Labour areas.

They do not vote in the same numbers as there (sic) elders.? Whose fault is that? Do their ‘elders’ prevent them from voting. This argument is getting really silly, Jerry.

dont know where you got the 800,000 from as the house only cost 165,000 , the old house was left because it was like living in a fridge . the new house gives a bit of comfort in old age .

@jerry slattery.. Where did you get your numbers from because they’re totally wrong. 800,000, you are kidding me, go back to school and learn some maths.

Eoin thank you. That’s a bit more correct pricing. 800 is way off the mark.

There I was feeling depressed and angry at the state of the country. Adebeyor….comment of the day..where’s he going and who is he taking…???? ? Love it !!

Don’t worry, Liv. I got your back. This ones for you.

ADEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO