Daily interest on rates arrears will begin in January 2026
Ratepayers who don’t pay their rates bills in time will be facing daily interest penalties from January of next year, members of Westmeath County Council were informed at their quarterly finance meeting.
“We don’t want the charges but they’re in law now and we have to apply them and we’ll be applying them from the 1st of January 2026,” the council’s director of finance, Michael Hand, stated, going on to suggest that councillors make any ratepayers they know aware of the change.
Mr Hand said the interest is due to be levied at a daily rate of 0.0209% or 8% per annum on all unpaid rates.
“The rates section is currently in the process of arranging a communication to issue to all relevant customers to firmly remind them of this legislative change in an attempt to try to avoid any unnecessary additional charges,” he said.
Mr Hand also revealed that on July 21, the council had received documentation in relation to the rates that will be due from BT, Gas Networks Ireland, Iarnród Éireann, Three Ireland, Vodafone Ireland and Eircom. While the exact impact of the assessment is not yet available, the council is anticipating that it will mean an additional income of around €97,500 – which while welcome, was something less than the council had hoped for.
Cllr Vinny McCormack asked whether customers who are on payment plans to clear arrears are likely to be affected by the new interest charges, while Cllr Paul Hogan asked how many businesses are likely to be in arrears based on previous years’ experiences.
Cllr Hogan went on to ask how many IPAS centres have been rated this year, and how many are still a work in progress.
“How many are we hoping to get on stream?” he asked, while Cllr Frankie Keena wanted to know how many IPAS centres there are in the country.
Cllr Niall Gaffney asked if the 8% per annum penalty had been in place for this year, what extra income would have resulted: “Have we that many non-compliant commercial rate payers? Is it something that’s going to have an impact on the budget or is it something that’s been brought in nationally and ultimately won’t have a big impact?” he asked.
Responding to the points raised, Mr Hand said the rates arrears owed from last year amounted to approximately €576,000. He said that the number of customers who were in arrears at the end of the year was 282 out of 2,871, around 10 percent. If none of those had paid their arrears for a full year, at 8 per cent per year, the penalties would equate to around €65,000.
He said there are 13 IPAS centres with which the council is engaging.
Budget
Meanwhile, the overall accounts figures presented to councillors by Mr Hand showed that the council’s income up to June 30 of this year came to €57,377,231, and its expenditure amounted to €57,270,060, meaning a surplus of income over outgoings of €7,171.
Local Property Tax (LPT)
A query on forthcoming changes to the Local Property Tax was raised by Cllr David Jones, in reaction to Mr Hand’s disclosure that property tax for the six months ending June 30 showed income of €6,867,773 (2023: €6,352,754) which is in line with Budget 2025.
Cllr Jones asked if the scrapping of the present self-assessment method was likely to mean additional revenue for the local authorities. Mr Hand replied that the council has a baseline figure, and that has been increased. “So if the valuations increase, or decrease, the only way it will affect us is in relation to the additional 15 per cent that this council and the members have agreed to apply,” he stated.