Ireland Officially In Recession.

We cant continue to get 80% of the tax from 20% of the population - enough is enough! Property tax my ar*e - a property rebate more like!! Paye tax credit should be scraped - everyone is then in the tax net - cut social welfare by 20% immediately - state pensions also - reduce public service wage bill by 20% through pay cuts and / or staff number reductions - cut capital expenditure in half until we can afford it - abolish all steering committees / oversight committees / tribunals / docklands authorities and all the rest of the hot air bullshit spinning quangos and there you have over 7 billion in cuts. Probably still not enough though!!
 
there is no reason why thee renter should be less exempt. As in any market, the long-term end game will be that the charged is passed on to the end-user (in this instance the renter).
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Maybe getting ahead of myself, but I have gone with what I have heard reference to and assumed, as Granger above, that this will be an owner occupier tax. We'll see what comes out on budget day

I fail to see any rationale for calling it unfair other than you saying it is "intrinsically unfair".
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You shouldn't need any further rationale. If I say it, it is so.

The economic arguement for taxing peoples homes is a 50/50 split between your point 2 and secondly because they can, and can't think of anything else. Your point 1 is not relevant to home ownership.

Tax is not all about economics, even in these times. It is about having a just and equitable society. The only justification for a tax on a person's wealth is to try and find a legitimate way to compensate the state for not charging them enough tax when they were accumulating that wealth. Substituting the word "property" for "wealth" makes it a very crude instrument indeed. I would like to think there would be a way of grabbing some of the wealth that was accumulated by those in the game during the Celtic Tiger years that got out at the right time. They certainly didn't pay enough tax but I'm not clever enough to think of a legal way to get it off them.

There are people in retirement today who spent most of their working lives paying ferociously high taxes. They managed to get a reasonable house in an area that becomes trendy over the years, retire on a very modest pension, further lowered when hubby kicks the bucket ... yada yada yada ... this is too hard to argue, it's like trying to argue that bread is an important part of a sandwich. It just is. Every example I think of is rings of unfairness, never mind the extreme ones. Can I turn it on you Mr Bull? Yes you can justify it on purely economic grounds, can you make the arguement for fairness/justness of the tax. That a person who directs his income towards his family home should pay more tax than someone who doesn't, that a person whose area becomes desireable should pay more tax than if it doesn't. that a person who properly maintains their house should pay more tax that those who don't?
 
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Firstly, you are correct about the owner/occupier stuff. That aspect of it isn't fair. All owners (or all dwellers) should pay the tax.

Now.

Don't give me any of these sob stories. All of the possible ways of increasing tax (indirect, direct, by usage) can produce a sob story. And your one is shite.

I can make the arguement for fairness/justness of the tax, just not infallibly (as taxation is an art, not a science). Firstly, I don't believe that the fact that mistakes have been made in the past mean that we shouldn't strive for a fair and economically justifiable tax system.

There are many aspects of this tax that are unclear. For instance, I don't think that your first point should apply (a person who directs his income towards his family home should pay more tax) given that I think it should apply to all owners of gaffs (and therfore filter to rent). I do think that somebody whould pay more tax if there area becomes more desirable...not sure of the problem with this one. Desirability is often driven by factors such as new transport links or the creation of new amenities.

And finally, I don't think that somebody who maintains their house should pay more tax, but is this really that going to make that much of a difference? Enough to go with a tax likely to depress the economy.

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Ireland is so far up the creek that the most sensible option would be to take the whole budget, bring it to vegas, and put it all on Red....Try and go on a hot streak for four or five spins, and then come back and try and do something...
 
Put it another way ...

Is it fair for people to be taxed proportionately based on their income - Yes
Is it fair for people to be taxed on their current spending - yes(ish) in that people have a level of control over their current spending decisions and can allow the tax regime influence their decisions.
Is it fair that people are taxed retrospectively on the basis of their past spending decisions - No, No, No. this does not give people equal opportunities to avoid paying the tax or to limit their liabilities.

ESRI are recommending a 0.4% valuation flat rate, although they haven't figured out how to value a house. I think I saw something about basing it on square footage by county would mean only 25% of the population were paying the wrong tax. they seemed to think this was a decent effort. That actually wouldn't work out to bad for me as long as they didn't include the stables, the servants quarters and the lodge. I have seen neighbouring houses with similar floor areas go for half (or double) the price between a well maintained house and one that was merely habitable.

Not that it matters what I think, it looks certain to happen, if not this year the following year. It's just a question of finding a credible valuation strategy and trying to find the best sounding exemptions that will have the least effect on the overall tax take.
 
Melendez said:
Put it another way ...

Is it fair for people to be taxed proportionately based on their income - Yes
Is it fair for people to be taxed on their current spending - yes(ish) in that people have a level of control over their current spending decisions and can allow the tax regime influence their decisions.
Is it fair that people are taxed retrospectively on the basis of their past spending decisions - No, No, No. this does not give people equal opportunities to avoid paying the tax or to limit their liabilities.
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Jaysus you don't half bang on.
 
del boy said:
Ireland is so far up the creek that the most sensible option would be to take the whole budget, bring it to vegas, and put it all on Red....Try and go on a hot streak for four or five spins, and then come back and try and do something...
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And you are the man for that job!!!!!!:lol::lol::lol:
 
del boy said:
Ireland is so far up the creek that the most sensible option would be to take the whole budget, bring it to vegas, and put it all on Red....Try and go on a hot streak for four or five spins, and then come back and try and do something...
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surely it would be all on green del boy, or is that european roulette.


these governments are no better than the sheriff of nottingham in years gone by.

like always, the poor get shafted. and if mcdowell doesnt win at the weekend, ill officially be telling the wife, we are poor
 
The bailout is the headline news item in several uk dailies today - inevitable now?

A disaster for Ireland.
 
Ireland would effectively be rulled by Merkel (slight exaggeration but..).

Loss of sovereignty the main reason. Very much not the way to go imo.
 
Yes, what a relief, there will be pain but at least it won't be prolonged agony. Need to get pig headed about the Corporation Tax though.
 
There is talk about a coordinated pan-European run on the banks on December 7th. Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to these things, but it was Eric Cantona's idea.

And he is god.
 
Germany and france will push this corporation tax thing hard. I think some of the comments coming from the irish administrators are arrogant to say the least, given that they are holding out the begging bowl. They have lost the plot and alienating merkel ect is not a good line to take at the present time
 
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