Tenants should not be forced to pay landlords' tax
Issued : Saturday 2 February, 2008
Statement by Ciarán Lynch TD
The system whereby tenants are effectively required to discharge the tax liability of their absentee landlords is of questionable legality and should be scrapped.
Tenants who are paying rent to a landlord who lives outside the jurisdiction are required to withhold 20 per cent of their rent and to forward it on to the Revenue Commissioners on the landlord's behalf.
According to information forwarded to me, failure to make these payments results in Revenue deducting the 20 per cent from the rent relief tax allowance that is due to the tenant, so regardless of what the Minister for Finance might say, tenants are indeed responsible for discharging the tax liability
This system places far too onerous a responsibility on the tenant to record and pay tax owed by somebody else.
In addition, according to land and tenant law, withholding any amount of rent, means the tenant is effectively in arrears, and so would be endangering their tenancy.
The law needs to be amended to end this unfair practice.
