QuoteI'd be very surprised if there wasn't another addition to the "levy", or a "normalisation" of the "levy" that results in higher taxes anyway.
So far the word on the street is as i see it at the moment
- No increase in taxes
- Childrens allowence to be reduced/taxed
- Job seekers allowence to be halfed for those up 24
- They will still pay Childrens allowence to children living outside the state whose parent works in the state.
- No christmas bonus return.
- Petrol to be taxed further.
- Public servants pay to be reduced by 7.5%
- TD's & higher public servants to take substantial pay cut
I'd be very surprised if there wasn't another addition to the "levy", or a "normalisation" of the "levy" that results in higher taxes anyway.
There will be tax increases - narrowing of bands, reduced allowances etc. "No new taxes" doesn't mean no tax increases, but there will be non-ringfenced carbon taxesOriginally Posted by Ringo
Social Welfare will be an across the board cut. Taxing/ means testing is too inefficient.
They have no choice on the Childrens allowance point, EU laws.
"Carbon Tax"
Given the sustained campaign this week by the Government, it's inevitable.
It won't be that substantial - just enough that they can try and portray it as being substantial. I'd actually expect it to be the same bull as the ministerial pensions and long service, where they'll claim they can't do it this Dáil!
There certainly won't be anything targetting the wealthy, tax exiles or closing avoidance loopholes.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Is this just to be an across the board cut?
If so it's ridiculous imo. Surely a sliding scale, protecting those on lower incomes and hitting those who can afford it more makes more sense?
I always feel this is a Joe Duffy line. There aren't enough rich people to sort this problem out.Even if we taxed them 80 cent in the euro. Tax exiles are living abroad legally.There certainly won't be anything targetting the wealthy, tax exiles or closing avoidance loopholes.
That's where the 'closing avoidance loopholes' comes into it though.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
You're spot on. Its populism at its finest. Its now been admitted that the 50% super tax rate in the UK is actually going to be revenue negative, as the highest tax payers are those most able to readily leave the jurisdiction and re-domicile when things move against them.
Whilst the morality of increasing taxes as income rises is pretty clear (to me anyway), unfortunately it doesn't make financial sense.
As an aside, iirc as it is currently, circa 50% of tax is paid by the top 5% of earners.
Are you going to shut the borders? Stop people visiting?
There will always be lower tax destinations willing to take them.
Last edited by dahamsta; 26/10/2009 at 4:34 PM.
Something like that.
I'm irritated by people who think there's a simple solution, some reserve of injustice that could be tapped to balance the budget. I saw a guy in the audience of Questions and Answers recently, arguing that we should seize money from developers who made so much during the boom. An economist on the panel rephrased what he'd said as an emergency tax on the wealthy. The man insisted that this wasn't a tax, that he wanted no more taxes. He wouldn't let this go. If you've sympathy for him, look up what the word "tax" means. He'd lost me even before I bothered to consider the implications of doing what he was suggesting - clearly, he had no idea what he was talking about.
It's not an answer to our financial problems, but aside from that, we should absolutely cancel their Irish passports. If they don't want to pay taxes here that's their lookout, but if they're not willing to accept the responsibility of being Irish, then they don't deserve to call themselves Irish.
Last edited by dahamsta; 26/10/2009 at 4:38 PM.
Given our status as a corporate tax haven, that might make the list of the top, oh, five or ten thousand most hypocritical things we'd have ever done as a nation.
Ireland prospers on hypocrisy, and corruption of course. You couldn't have picked a better example than our corporate tax regime, which made us - well, some people anyway, certainly not me - incredibly rich and incredibly vulnerable in one foul swoop.
Agree.
The Revenue made one good move (only in the last year?) where they redefined their definition of what a day constitutes for tax residency purposes. Previously, if you were out of the country on the stroke of midnight, you were not resident in Ireland on that day, allowing you to exclude it from the 169 (something like that anyway?) day residency requirement. Apparently for a period you had a queue of private jets on the runway at Dublin Airport every night at 11.45, which took off, took a spin into international airspace, and returned at 12.05.
Now I believe the definition has been changed to count it as a tax day if you are in the country at any point during the day.
A bit like the drink driving stuff, its a combination of poor rules and I would argue, worse enforcement, that leads to situations like this.
Taxing the wealthy, hitting tax exiles for some of their just deserts and closing loopholes may not bring in a hell of a lot of revenue. However, if you're going to hit social welfare recipients with cuts, cut pay of workers, and increase the tax burden on lower income tax payers, the wealthy have to be seen to also take their fair share of the hit. Afterall, they're the ones that were on the pigs back during the boom and bubble (where the pay gap widened).
For all the garbage that lenihan, and the media (who just happen to be controlled by tax exiles) come out with about the amount the wealthy contribute, there marginal rate doesn't compare with the PAYE worker. The x number of tax payers who don't pay any tax includes millionaires and billionaires who (legitimately) avoid tax.
Or are the usual suspects on this thread suggesting that only social welfare recipients, PAYE workers, and public servants should pay the price, whilst the wealthy walk away as they were?
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
As opposed to the attack on the public service?
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You take action that, through the least amount of pain, balances the budget.
If introducing a punitive tax rate on higher earnings is revenue negative, then whilst it might make us feel better from a moral standpoint, the actual effect would be to increase the size of the cuts made elsewhere. Unless it can be proved taxing the ultrawealthy more would be effective for revenue, then its simply a smokescreen (or as someone said last week "Joe Duffy politics").
It then comes down to how much of the burden the public vs private sector PAYE worker respectively shares. It has been stated that we need to roll back our standard of living to 2003 levels in order to reduce the budget deficit. If we look at the change in earnings since then, it is clear as day that the public sector has significantly more than the private sector in that time period, mostly because many of the advances made by the private sector have been eroded in the last 18 months. In comparison, public sector pay, despite a hiring ban and the pensions levy, continues to rise. This might be unfair, but its totally unsustainable.
So in rolling back standards of living to 2003 levels, its the public sector that has to bear the brunt of the cuts, as the private sector has already undergone huge adjustments.
The unions have recognised this, as they have changed tack in the last fortnight and are now attacking the timeframe for reducing the budget deficit, which is completely self-serving and reckless IMO.
The duplicity is staggering. When selective use of the ESRI data was driving benchmarking awards a few years ago the unions weren't complaining about its accuracy, now the ESRI are a puppet of special business interests and the output completely unreliable
Its also conveniently forgotten that one of the key reasons that cuts in public sector spending automatically becomes a wage cutting issue is that the public sector is significantly more resistant to changes in working practice than most of the private sector. This is also the reason that the good, honest workers in the public sector, of which there are a huge amount, get tarred with the "jobsworth" label, which is completely unfair. The tolerance of completely outdated and anachronistic working practices, sidebar agreements and generally inefficient working processes reduces productivity and provides both a hiding place and a safety blanket for poor performers, at the expense of honest, hard working staff (of whatever rank).
And here's the clincher, its the unions protection of these outdated working practices and by extension, the protection of the lazy jobsworths that result in across the board paycuts which by their nature will always be unfair.
These are my own views, formed through over 10 years experience working with various state, semi-state and public departments and bodies.
In a decent society, you do both.
You're in a forum ORA, not the Dail. The hardline stance doesn't really achieve anything in here.
Last edited by dahamsta; 27/10/2009 at 12:44 PM.
The quality of discussion on here is much better than the Dail.In a decent society, you do both.
You're in a forum ORA, not the Dail. The hardline stance doesn't really achieve anything in here.
Less people get thrown out of foot.ie for poor behaviour for a start
And no one's pandering to the media or their constituents.
In Ireland, we have people that want to be Irish, but don't want to pay any taxes.
In Germany, some wealthy citizens want to pay more.
adam
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