In Focus: Showcasing the Irish Experience in Introducing Local Property Tax

At the recent learning event, Eugene Creighton from the Irish Revenue shared his country's experience in introducing a new Local Property Tax (LPT) on residential property. The Irish case study showed how good design reduced evasion and how a compliance rate of over 90 per cent was achieved before any audits took place despite some taxpayer and political resistance.

Received comments from participants representing tax authorities from Albania, Cyprus, Kosovo, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia confirmed that the first-hand country experience describing how an individual country is responding to key challenges to improve the effectiveness of its tax system was the most appreciated learning activity throughout the event. Such approach offers tax officials easily accessible profiles of countries’ tax systems, and the policies adopted to improve those systems, that can inspire reforms at home.

"The case study on the Irish LPT was interesting and provided attendees with an overall project management methodology to introduce a cooperative approach to modern compliance management," noted Stan Shrosbree, International Monetary Fund's Regional Revenue Administration Advisor for Southeast Europe.

The learning event took place on March 4-6, 2014 in Ljubljana.