[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-michael-d-higgins-set-to-net-100-000-tax-free-on-his-galway-house-0g5rp5j0t](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-michael-d-higgins-set-to-net-100-000-tax-free-on-his-galway-house-0g5rp5j0t)
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-michael-d-higgins-set-to-net-100-000-tax-free-on-his-galway-house-0g5rp5j0t](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-michael-d-higgins-set-to-net-100-000-tax-free-on-his-galway-house-0g5rp5j0t)
10 comments
From the article:
*President Michael D Higgins stands to earn €100,000 tax-free from the sale of his investment property in Galway, after putting the six-bedroom house on the market for €470,000. Higgins, who bought the house for €370,000 at auction in 2014 through a third party, will benefit from a capital gains tax (CGT) exemption by selling the house this year. CGT is usually charged at 33% on any profit from a property sale.*
*Higgins, who paid €90,000 above the house’s advised minimum value when he purchased it six years ago, had been renting the detached home to students from NUI Galway but he served them with a notice to quit the property late last year, saying it was to be put on the market. The house is in a rent pressure zone, meaning rent increases are capped at 4% a year…………………………………………………the house’s tenants, some of whom were overseas students, were initially asked to leave the property in the summer of 2019 by Higgins’s solicitor. When some of the residents said they had been unable to find alternative accommodation, they were given an extension until the end of December. The tenants, who were paying €2,200 a month for the property, left shortly before Christmas.*
Oh, paywalled rage bait. My favourite!
Man makes money from investment
Handy but not scandalous profit.
The anger here shouldn’t be at Higgins, but at that particular CGT exemption.
The whole “landlords are fleeing the market because they can’t own their tenants as chattel anymore” hysteria is actually mostly driven by the slow expiry of this exemption for thousands of rental properties at a time when prices are approaching record highs.
Newspapers aren’t going to talk about that though, because they all benefit massively from a buoyant property sector through extensive advertorials in all papers and in the case of the Irish Times from MyHome.ie and TheJournal from Daft.ie.
What’s the problem here?
Hardly seems newsworthy… Just another annoying reminder that those of use who bought just before the last bubble burst, are continuing to get shafted…
*Rolls eyes at stupid reposts*
> Sunday January 12 2020
Happened years ago. Discussed many times on this sub when it happened. No law broken. No outrage. Normal transaction.
Anger as man sells house
This article is from 2020 and we already had a thread on it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/hj1o5g/president_michael_d_higgins_cashes_in_galway/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share