Ireland Officially In Recession.

Page 6 "the government has decided that 40% or €6 billion of the €15bn adjustment will be made in 2011". So that's not €15bn a year becasue they have clearly said above it is €6bn in year one, not PER YEAR.
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The adjustment is €6B in year 1, and they will make further adjustment until there is a difference from this year of €15B on the fourth year (not every year until year 4 if that's what you thought I meant).

The tax illustration above was to show that in year 4 of the plan, the tax take will be €5b higher than this year, likewise Govt expenditure in year 4 will be €10b lower than this year.

If you have no tax credits, no pension and no property, you are in the ballpark that you will be paying only €150 per month extra. The €1.8b is merely increased income tax due to band and rate adjustments. The increased tax take the government will get from adjusting credits, pension allowances and from property tax is over €2b (bringing us to the 3.8b I mentioned when I admitted to exaggerating), more than doubling the mere band and rate fiddling. If you get hit by average amounts of each of these you are already up to over €300 per month.

I'd happily bet you a pint that you'll be paying more than €150 more tax in 2014, but if you lost you probably couldn't afford to buy me a pint. If I lost you probably would end up selling me a horse with my unexpected extra funds.
 
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Melendez said:
The adjustment is €6B in year 1, and they will make further adjustment until there is a difference from this year of €15B on the fourth year (not every year until year 4 if that's what you thought I meant).
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Your quote was "€15B per year by 2014" which I was pointing out was not correct. The €15bn is the difference between 2010 and 2014. It is front loaded i.e. €6bn in 2011.

You other quote was "Your average Nurse/Garda will be paying €300-500 per month extra". I said that income tax would cost €1,800, or €150 a month. Let's look at the other taxes:

€0.9bn Pension
€0.7bn Tax expenditures
€0.5bn Site value tax
€0.3bn Carbon tax
€0.2bn Capital tax
€0.6bn VAT
€0.1bn Other measures
€3.3bn Total (excluding income tax of €1.7bn (rounding) to get to €5bn)

Pension - most people on €55k are paying little enough into a pension. Say 10% of their monthly salary of €4,583. So pension contribution is €458 and they get relief at 40% now and 20% in the future. Difference is €90 a month. You must remember this adjustment is to catch the fat cats who pay 20-30% into their pensions.
Tax expenditures - relate to all the "schemes" that people took advantage of and I'm assuming this doesn't apply to your basic worker, although rent a room relief might.
Site value tax - this is up in the air and it looks like it could be a flat charge for home owners. Say €400 a year or €30 a month.
Carbon tax - presumably will impact on car drivers but surely no more than €10 a month.
Capital tax - relates to capital gains and inheritance tax so no effect
VAT - increases from 21% to 23% - we assumed the person has a house as they are paying site tax, which means they have a mortgage and won't have a lot to spend otherwise. So if that person spends €1,000 a month (very high) on goods and services the difference from 21% to 23% is €20 a month more.
Other measures - small so of little consequence

So what we have is the following increase per month:
€150 increase in income tax
€90 Pension tax (which can be offset somewhat by reducing
€30 Site
€10 carbon tax
€20 VAT
€300 Total monthly increase in taxes if all the above happen

So that's the absolute tops and can be reduced depending on whether you have a home, pay a pension, spend a lot or drive a car. So the lower end of your calcualtion is the higher end of mine. Again, that is manageable if we all have our jobs. We won't go bare foot.
 
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And my point is that your €500 a month mark is where we should be. Not at the €300 a month or less which it will be under this plan. The income tax adjustment of €1,800 in a year is a skiiing holiday. And the balance is a Summer holiday. So no-one should be going on foreign holidays come 2014. which will hopefully boost our own tourism economy. My point is that those who have jobs will be able to afford to pay more (say your €500 a month) and still retain a comfortable lifestyle without having any extravagances that we have come to take for granted like the frappachinos and fancy sandwiches and famous chefs.
 
So, for those of you still with shares in Starbucks, Subway or Cafe Nero - get out now!

(Poor wee Mel's collapsed, I think!)
 
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The euro zone region's inability to fund future bailouts will probably force some of the 16 euro nations, including Ireland, to abandon the currency within five years, the head of the world's largest bond management firm has warned.
Mohamed A El-Erian, chief executive of investment management firm Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco), told CNBC that Spain and Portugal are likely follow Ireland in drawing on the European Union's bailout fund.
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Has anyone read any of the books by Fintan O'Toole? Ship of fools was the one that sold well I think, and he had another one out in October.
 
Bar the Bull said:
Fintan O'Toole is a ball bag.
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Why is that?

Not disagreeing with you (I don't know much about him at all), but a friend likes him a lot (albeit one who would only see his articles not see him on tv) and was going to get him one of his books for xmas.
 
Gurdgiev I think is the most listenable to. Anyone with that accent speaking about serious things has to be right.
 
For someone so intelligent Fintan resorted to cheap shots at Vincent Browne on TV3 a few weeks ago when discussing political reform.
 
David McWilliams says what he has to say which is usually a lot. I do read his articles but more for a different point of view than anything else.
 
I spent two hours this evening at a seminar discussing NAMA and Peter Matthews decided to go on a ten minute monolgue from his audience easy chair. I must say I'm sick and tired of all these lads sitting there talking and talking from the comfort of their seat when they are not willing to get up and do something about it. If you took Gurdiev, McWilliams, George Lee, Peter Matthews, Brian Lucey, Fintan O'Toole and Vincent Browne, would they form a party and go to the electorate asking for a mandate for change?? No, of course they wouldn't because they would be giving up the easy seat for a bit of hard work.

McWilliams was asked at the weekend would he run and stand up for people given his ideas are "soooo" good. He said he wouldn't do a good job fixing the gutters for the little old ladies and that's why he wouldn't run. What a cop out. George Lee found out that life is not always as easy in public life as sitting in his easy chair. I've lost interest in their ramblings. They moan about NAMA, a soverign wealth fund that would have taken 20 years to grow organically but was put together in a few months. What do you expect from it. It was never going to be perfect but now they have a chance to run as independents, get a mandate and form a coalition of the great eco minds. But that would be the honourable thing to do.
 
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