People still have the option of resisting these taxes by paralyzing the country with strikes and protests.

The next protest on on July 18th.

Mr. Murphy,

The government are failing. Why haven’t they scrapped the croke park agreement and reduced public sector pay? Why haven’t they burned the bondholders? Why have they given higher expenses allowance to TD’s? The list goes on…

heard they have good deals on today .

@Mark, going after the public sector? Really? You want to save money?! Look at Social Welfare, of course the report was repealed but when your better off on Social Welfare than working what does that say about our current welfare system?

Because Irish people are placid.

Many Irish seem happy to endure new taxes without street protests or strikes.

Many Irish believe we’re under taxed. Sure, I’d like to pay less tax, but unfortunately that deficit won’t plug itself.

Mr. O’Suilleabháin:

The rich are under-taxed. Not the ordinary middle income earners. Anyone earning above €80 K pays little tax.

Frankly mark that’s rubbish. A single individual on 80k under PAYE pays roughly 30k in taxes. Plug it in here and see for yourself http://www.hookhead.com/Tools/tax2012.jsp

I agree with Ronan, we actually are still a low tax economy, even with the increases we’ve seen in the last few years. According to a recent report, we have the 2nd lowest tax revenue per GDP in the Eurozone: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0522/1224316503183.html

@Ignoreland, that’s slightly misleading in terms of income tax though, as GNP is the measure that should be used for Ireland. GDP includes all of the (subsequently re-repatriated) earnings of multinationals, who are definitely under taxed under double-dutch and other agreements.

We are undertaxed, though not to that extent. I don’t think the working population has the income to bridge the gap with the deficit.

Rónán O’Suilleabháin opposes tax hikes for the rich because

a) One of his family members are either on massive wages

b) He himself is earning or aspiring to become a rich boy

c) He follows the FG party line.

In any case, it doesn’t matter what he thinks it will pass with higher income taxes. His simple minded comment totally omits the fact that mega rich earners pay little income taxes and even get multi-million euro rebates back from the government,and the working mega rich have teams of high priced lawyers and numerous loop holes in the tax law to get them out of paying their fair share,just ask Bono.
Rónán, you are really in the dark.

Tim,

1. I’m not, and no-one else in my circle is on 80K or over.
2. Everyone has aspirations for themselves. It’s why I went to college. I will make no apology for that
3. I’m a FGer just because I support tax hikes and cuts?For your information I voted independent, and I support cuts and tax hikes because we are spending money we don’t have as a nation. I’m a realist.
4. I have not, in any thread, referred to the super rich. I have made a distinction of PAYE workers. Read my posts on this thread and others and you’ll see I’ve never advocated a lower tax rate for the mega rich. All I have said is that PAYE workers on 80K pay more than their fair share of tax, both in real terms, and as a percentage of their salary. They contribute a lot to this country.
5. Loop holes? For crying out loud, I suggested that this should be the target for progressively taxing the mega rich (clue: they earn a lot more than 80K and don’t pay under the PAYE system), not PAYE income tax rates.
6. I despise Bono
7. Play the ball and not the man. Don’t resort to some childish inaccurate profiling. Grow up and discuss the issues. All I’ve done here this evening is rubbish the notion that people on 80K don’t pay their share. They pay their share and the share of the people on 30K, who pay 5k per year according to
http://www.hookhead.com/Tools/tax2012.jsp. This is good. This is progressive tax. This is as it should be.

I agree with a tax rise for myself, but I also believe more people should be in the tax net. I’ll gladly pay an extra 100 euro per month next year, if the person on 30k will pay 20 euro. 5er of their money per week for 25 of mine. Can’t say fairer than that.

Creating a 3rd band of tax will only punish PAYE workers, and leave those that are self-assessed to continue finding creative ways to declare their income and pay less tax.

The equitable answer is property equity taxes (i.e. none paid by those in negative equity, as they actually have the square root of FA in terms of assets), increases to CGT and CAT to bring them in line with the marginal rate of tax for PAYE workers (makes it not worth cooking the income slip), and closing some loopholes, for individuals and corporations (the effective tax paid by multinationals is generally a lot less than 12.5%)

Ronan,

Those tax cuts weren’t tied to business or jobs or anything else, that was money that simply went back into their pockets. They could spend it or save it or stuff it in their mattress. The didn’t have to have a business to hire anyone for.

I really don’t mind, in this economy a targeted tax cut for someone or a company who does hire more than they had, we do need jobs. But just giving rich people, not business, but individuals a tax break and making them all ‘job creators’ overnight is a fools game. If wealthy earners wanted to pay more taxes, they could, by paying as an employee rather than through long-term capital gains, and shareholder distributions – this punishes PAYE workers.

Just FIVE wealthy people paid the wealth levy in 2011:
http://www.thejournal.ie/guess-how-many-irish-tax-exiles-have-paid-the-new-rich-tax-273724-Nov2011/

Tax cuts for the upper 1%? Let me inform you that tax cuts have NEVER worked in stimulating the economy. Find me one instance where they have worked historically. Problem is you cant. I know a guy whose bad worked in Dublin. He is retired now, and I dont know what he did there but I do know he owns a home in Florida that 2000 sq M and he is very well off. His son told me that creating jobs wasnt the objective. It was accumulating wealth. Thats fine if you are running a company. Its not fine if you are trying to develop a plan to create jobs. For you to think that tax cuts will be a save this country tells me you are delusional. Its your type of thinking, without facts, that is the problem in this country.

Rob, I never advocated tax cuts for the wealthy. Read what I said, and not what others have invented from what I actually did talk about: the relative contribution of PAYE earners, and how a third tax band wouldn’t target the right people

Probably endless bank bailouts at the expense of every Hospital bed.

Courtesy of FG and FF. They are no different.

FF created the debt and the deficit. Not much FG can do really but make the deficit smaller which they are.

Oh please! If I hired someone to turn around my sales and the best they could do after 18 months is blame the guy before, I’d fire them. Unlike how blueshirts prefer to think, in this country there are winners and loosers. Either you produce results or you’re fired.

Ok hotshot sales guy. You have a 20 billion budget deficit on an income of 30 billion. What are you going to do to make that a 5 billion surplus in 1 year?

Noonan and Howlin only care about their political class.

The time has come for people to vote them out of office.

In all fairness Tim, he’s just following orders from head office……vich must be obeyed vitout qvestion.

Kevin just head to Dublin Airport to understand why employment figures are ‘steadying’ you might learn something. And BTW it’s not a return to the bond markets we are selling short term T-bills please get up to speed before commenting.

I hope they have broadband in the poorhouses so we can keep our discussion going!

Dalt could you tell us which part of the Socialist spectrum receives your support. Do you get expenses?

i meant stealth taxes.

Because Fine Gael want to pay the bondholders with Irish peoples money.

Beacause there’s still a projected gap of €17bn in the current budget between tax and expenditure. This has absolutely nothing to do with the banks.

Ignoreland,

That gap would be halved if the bank debt was burned. The remainder could be reduced with the existing austerity.

Not without a fight. For example, there are clever ways of bypassing a water meter or even removing it. The household charge will eventually be scrapped if early elections happen. The next government will repeal water charges and property taxes. Savings can be made elsewhere by lowering public sector pay, lowering public pensions, increasing wealth taxes, and above all stopping the handover to Banks.