"Soaking the rich, again"

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Good article in the Sunday Times by Cormac Lucey

http://cormaclucey.blogspot.ie/2016/01/soaking-rich-again.html

Now that the recession is over, you may have thought that tax increases are a thing of the past and that the happy days are here again — but you would be wrong. Two weeks ago, The Sunday Times reported that Fine Gael and the Labour party are planning to introduce new taxes for people earning more than €100,000 a year.

Fine Gael is also proposing new taxes for the better off, despite research from the Economic and Social Research Institute showing that it was those higher earners who had lost the most income during the austerity budgets after 2009.

A key factor behind this plan is that Fine Gael faces no real political competition on its right flank. It wouldn’t have been so politically careless in the past when the Progressive Democrats existed, and it wouldn’t be so politically careless now if it took Renua seriously
 
What I don't understand here is the categorizing of a single income of €100,000 as being in the "rich" bracket. In effect therefore a couple with 3/4 children and 1 earner at 100k is supposed to be significantly better off than a couple with 2 earners at 70K each and no kids, or even a single person on 70K! Surely this is myopic and unfair on many couples in the former category!!
 
Hi 44

When politicians throw out ideas like "a tax on people earning over €100k" , they don't worry about the details of joint assessment.

Do they mean a couple earning €50k each? Do they mean a single person earning €100k?

But the thing which annoys me most is that no party is actually calling for a reduction in the very high taxes paid by higher earners and an increase in taxes paid by the lower earners. The imbalanced system we have can't last.

Brendan
 
Realistically FG see their core vote as being currently in the middle income bracket. They are not an attractive party to the lower earners and would like to gain more votes from that sector.
SF & Socialist parties are attracting votes by targeting the rich! Realistically a political strategy would be to maintain satisfaction with the cohort of middle/low income earners and potentially increase their vote from this area. An attack on the "high earners" will not lose them many votes and imbalance & fairness is certainly the last thing on their minds.
 
It is difficult to quantify the cost to the economy when a "high earner" says "why would I bother doing that for 45% of the upside".

The concept of ending up with a minority share of the reward for your endeavour is ridiculous.

And in any event someone on €100k isn't "wealthy". Nevermind the fact that this governmemt deem someone on €70k or more to be a "high earner".
 
And so many folk say FG are the Irish right wing party!!! No, they're just another collection of Rural school teachers, SthDub professionals etc who's Grand-daddies supported Collins back in the day.

Tomorrow's papers will contain stories of FG bemoaning the fact that so many Irish won't come back home because of high taxes
 
Its the farmers they look to protect no mention of taxing single farm payments to the rich farmer ,years of reps before that , animal subsidies before that stud farmers and horse breeding tax free probably some of the wealtiest in our society .Its a joke
 
Gordon Gekko said:
It is difficult to quantify the cost to the economy when a "high earner" says "why would I bother doing that for 45% of the upside".
Click to expand...

It very much depends on where you work and your area of expertise. In certain circumstances, "not bothering" might lose you your job.
 
Sophrosyne said:
It very much depends on where you work and your area of expertise. In certain circumstances, "not bothering" might lose you your job.
Click to expand...

Of course, but "high earners" tend not be sacked and there is nuance to "not bothering" in this context. For example, partners in a firm not bothering to open up a new revenue stream, or a medical consultant choosing to close his practice because "what's the point for 45%?".
 
seamus m said:
Its the farmers they look to protect no mention of taxing single farm payments to the rich farmer ,years of reps before that , animal subsidies before that stud farmers and horse breeding tax free probably some of the wealtiest in our society .Its a joke
Click to expand...

Without exception all of the items you've listed there are taxable now - some have always been, and the bloodstock exemption has been gone for 8 years at this stage.

No doubt there are some quite wealthy farmers but there are also far more who are doing well to make the average industrial wage, and need to find off-farm work to sustain themselves.
 
Jon my mistake and tell me this would the published figure for single farm payments anywhere up to 300000 from what I read be before or after tax.
 
I'll be voting Renua... not saying their policies are perfect or ************************* or I even agree with all of them, but they seem to be the only party that are genuinely pro-enterprise and think that people are entitled to the fruits of their work... as opposed to FG, whose view of it is a begrudging goose that lays the golden egg, how much can we shake them down for etc
 
seamus m said:
Jon my mistake and tell me this would the published figure for single farm payments anywhere up to 300000 from what I read be before or after tax.
Click to expand...
SFP's are paid gross but are assessed as a normal part of a farmers income. Yes, many farmers are paper rich in terms of land value but the vast majority are still existing on a low income level and putting in a heavy workload just to achieve that. I'm not a farmer but I deal with them regularly in my business and I appreciate the work & expertise put in by them compared to many on higher incomes.
Jon Snows's comment fully reflect the current tax position of farmers. They are taxed broadly comparatively with all other business owners.
 
I thought FG were always on saying that Execs in MNCs were being put off from coming here because of the high taxes on those earning over 80k or so, and that FG would fix this!
 
It,s too glib to say k100 =rich .
If you have k100 and no mortgage + no kids , you are rich.
If you have K100 and mortgage + 3 kids , you survive.

Anyone on k100 is 3 times the average wage ,so they are close to rich.

This whole (Tax the Rich) is a lazy conscript.
Soaking the Rich ,ain,t much better.

Usually the thread runs round what, farmers get, social welfare get , civil servants get etc.
Over the years I contend most things balance out and most of the obvious unfairness get sorted in their electoral turn.

Maybe lets agree k150 = rich ? , so lets Soak them a bit ?
 
It's almost as if our politicians don't understand the concepts of percentages, and don't realise that 40% of €120,000 is greater than 40% of €90,000...
 
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