Workers Solidarity Movement

The Government call it a Property Tax but it’s really a tax on the family home and once they get the foot in the door with this tax it will only rise. Along with the water tax (which comes in next year) households will be hit with bills of 1,000 euro a year and more before too long.

Five years of austerity have hammered ordinary people. No more. The Government must be stopped in their tracks on this one.

These robbers are planning to deduct the tax straight from wages, social welfare, pensions or farm payments if you refuse to sign up for it. It is a new income tax and a new social welfare cut all rolled into one!

And for what? Everybody knows that those who say that it will improve local services are lying. Everybody knows that they want the bondholders to be the winners once again.

But can it be fought? Can it be defeated?

YES. It’s not just a fight against the Revenue, it’s a fight against the Government. And this Government is weak. Both parties are on the back foot. Labour is particularly under pressure and pressure should be piled on over this issue.
The first step should be for a huge number of people to boycott the registration process. Ignore the Revenue correspondence. Ignore the registration deadlines in May. Even if they threaten to double your property tax for refusing to register people should still boycott. Last year they threatened court cases and 2500 euro fines for the 662,000 households who boycotted the household charge. But they couldn’t implement the penalties because the opposition was so large.

A massive boycott of the property tax forms will put the Government under real pressure. However, a boycott on its own is not enough because the Government have given the Revenue the power to deduct the tax from wages and social welfare on July 1st.

This means that the Government must be forced back – either on the property tax or on the threat to deduct.
How can this be done? Only by a massive protest movement. This means huge numbers on the street (see ad for national demo), it means political pressure, it means civil disobedience, it means industrial action (see articles inside). In this way a blow can be struck against the property tax, against the plan to introduce a water tax and against the entire austerity agenda.
Such a movement will have to be built in communities and workplaces across the country. Thousands of volunteers are needed. Join the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) today.

Source: CAHWT newsletter / leaflet - available as a PDF file to download & print off