Local Government (Remission of Rates) Act, 1940

Relief from rates.

2.—(1) Where the erection, enlargement, or improvement of any residence is completed during the prescribed period and an increase in the valuation of the tenement including such residence is made on an application for the revision of such valuation by reason solely of such erection, enlargement, or improvement, the valuation of such tenement shall be deemed to be reduced for rating purposes by two-thirds of such increase.

(2) Where the erection, enlargement, or improvement of any residence is completed during the prescribed period and an increase in the valuation of the tenement including such residence is made on an application for the revision of such valuation by reason partly of such erection, enlargement, or improvement, the valuation of such tenement shall be deemed to be reduced for rating purposes by two-thirds of so much of such increase as is attributable to such erection, enlargement, or improvement.

(3) In this section the expression “rating purposes” means the following (and no other) purposes, that is to say, the purposes of the assessment and levying of any rate raised by a local authority for the service of the local financial year commencing next after the completion of the erection, enlargement, or improvement of the relevant residence or for the service of any of the next following four local financial years, but subject to the following overriding limitations, that is to say:—

(a) if in any of the said four local financial years a general revision of valuation in the area in which the relevant residence is situate becomes effective, that local financial year and the subsequent local financial years (if any) shall be excluded from the said four local financial years, and

(b) if in the local financial year immediately preceding the said four local financial years or in the first, second, or third of the said four local financial years the relevant residence is at any time used wholly or principally for any purpose except the residence of a separate family, the local financial year next following that in which such user occurs and the subsequent local financial years (if any) shall be excluded from the said four local financial years.

(4) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of the immediately preceding sub-section of this section restricting the meaning of the expression “rating purposes”, it is hereby enacted in particular that notwithstanding the valuation (in this sub-section referred to as the full valuation) of a tenement being deemed under this section to be reduced in relation to any local financial year, every computation for the purposes of the Income Tax Acts of the annual value of such tenement shall be made in like manner as if the full valuation were in force for the purposes of poor rates in relation to that local financial year.

(5) It shall be the duty of a local authority, before deeming under this section the valuation of a tenement to be reduced for the purposes of the assessment and levying of any rate raised by them for the service of any local financial year in respect of which the exclusion contained in paragraph (b) of sub-section (3) of this section might operate, to satisy themselves, so far as is reasonably possible, that the relevant residence has not been so used as to bring the said exclusion into operation in respect of that local financial year.