A chara, – Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has committed his Government to fairness in the budget. This is to be welcomed.
Can we expect that this promised fairness will extend to those who bought houses at exorbitantly high prices (50 per cent above present values) during the boom and paid exorbitantly high stamp duty (property tax) to the government? Will they be given a rebate equivalent to the 50 per cent overpaid stamp duty when calculating the new property tax? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Has Fine Gael twinned itself with the Republican Party of the US? Its budgetary policies – low income taxes for high earners; squeeze the middle classes; cut welfare benefits for the needy and cut health services for the sick – appear eerily similar. Add a deep conservatism on the question of women’s health and the similarities are frightening.
Maybe Lucinda Creighton is about to start up an Irish version of the Tea Party! Please remind them of the outcome of the American presidential election – not who won, but who lost! – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I have just turned to this month’s cartoon in The Irish Times Calendar 2012. It features a ragged-trousered Tiny Tim making a donation to a group of politicians including two former taoisigh. The accompanying text (written in November 2011 by Martyn Turner) is still valid today: Just €10 off your children’s allowance will help us pay the premature and bloated pensions of some failed politicians.
Plus ça change. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Surely this property tax – as it is put forward – is in some way unconstitutional?
If I own my house, then yes, I should pay the property tax. However, if I have taken out a loan in order to live in a house without recourse to the national coffers then I should not be penalised for that, until I have paid for the house. It is only mine when I have paid in full, loan plus interest. While I am paying the mortgage surely I cannot be held liable for the house, since, if I default on the mortgage then the house will be taken away from me? It is only mine if I keep paying.
Maybe the cost of the property tax should be split between the interested parties? Is there anybody who knows the law and the Constitution who can put a case together? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Kathryn Mulready (December 3rd) makes a very valid request for Dublin TDs to stop claiming unvouched expenses for travel. However, I would extend this to any county within the imposed de-facto commuting belt.
Include Carlow, Wexford, Laois, Westmeath, Louth, Offaly and any county bordering Dublin. This commute is the reality for many of their constituents.
It would be one small move in the direction of being governed by the people rather than an elite who still inhabit a parallel universe. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I, like so many of your recent letter contributors am aghast at the pensions of former politicians and bankers. I am looking forward to the budget on Wednesday so that this will be put right. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – May I suggest that we request the EU to postpone our requirement to invest an estimated €0.5 billion, that we haven’t got, in water meter installation until we are in a position to feed our children?
This expenditure will be of little benefit in regenerating our economy other than providing another means, at enormous cost, of trying to extract more money from where it doesn’t exist. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – To balance our books, we are being forced to contemplate cuts to child benefit and to pensions. Home help hours for the most needy are being withdrawn. It would appear no stone is being left unturned, apart from one. Alcohol has not had a mention. This is bizarre.
Alcohol sales generate about €2 billion annually for the exchequer. However, the costs generated by alcohol use are about €3.5 billion, much of this burden falling on our beleaguered health and criminal justice systems. It seems unreasonable that our society continues to provide a subsidy of €1.5 billion per annum to those of us who choose to drink. We cannot afford this any more.
Successive governments have assembled expert groups to advise on alcohol policy. The three reports in the past 13 years have made similar recommendations, advocating what is called a public health approach to alcohol. Politicians have generally been unwilling to implement these recommendations. Many politicians argue instead that we should have an approach to alcohol based on “individual responsibility”. Bring it on, I say. Let’s make individuals responsible for their own choices to drink. The simplest way is via the tax paid on purchases. Non-drinkers should not be picking up the tab for the costs generated by us drinkers. Indeed, as things stand, if you are drinking less than the equivalent of a bottle of whiskey per week, you are subsidising the alcohol consumption of those who drink more than this.
Pubs pay their share in this regard, where VAT is now the major contributor to the exchequer. However, alcohol sales in supermarkets are massively subsidised by the State, with the tax generated in that setting covering only about one third of the costs arising out of the alcohol they sell. The Department of Finance must come up with a mechanism to ensure the off-trade pays it fair share.
Increasing the cost of alcohol in supermarkets will no doubt bring on whingeing about a “nanny state”. A nanny state would be a country which was over-intrusive, engaging in excessive regulation, while simultaneously holding citizens to account in a robust manner.
It is laughable to view Ireland in such terms, a country infamously wary of either regulation or accountability.
It would be more honest to view our approach as being that of a “mammy state”. This is one which gives its citizens the right to do what they want, while also picking up the tab and preventing them from suffering in any way from the consequences of there own behaviour. The mammy state must end. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The proposal to increase excise on “imported” wines and leave the rates for “local” beers and spirits is flawed logic at best – and at worst, a mean-spirited (no pun intended) attempt by a lobby group to selfishly discriminate (Front page, December 1st).
The rationale behind the idea is apparently that it will save jobs in pubs – whereas those jobs in wine retailing are apparently not worthy. Nor are the tens of thousands in the restaurant trade across the country that will be forced to increase prices on wines following any increase in excise duty. And what about all the “imported” premium beers and spirits – would they be taxed separately to those produced locally? Or the considerable amount of wine that is sold in pubs?
Next they’ll be telling us the reason is that wine is a “luxury” item and therefore a target for additional excise. The simple fact is that due to aggressive discounting and promotion, wine is now one of the cheapest forms of alcohol to purchase at retail. This is what is challenging the pubs for trade.
Taxing wine disproportionately will still allow those with big enough retail offerings to continue to discount and promote wine as they pick up profit in other areas. What is needed urgently to protect jobs in the pub trade, in independent wine retailers, in restaurants, in wholesalers – and equally importantly to reduce the cost to our heavily burdened health service – is a ban on below cost selling of alcohol and multi-buy promotions.
Finally, Ireland is an EU designated wine-producing country. I’m sure the Commission would have an interesting opinion on a tax which discriminates against similar product from other EU countries. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – There is a persistent economic fallacy that taxing the rich more will lead to them relocating, and taking the jobs they create elsewhere.
This is nonsense, and disempowers those potential entrepreneurs with real motivation and fresh ideas at the base of the economic pyramid. The monopoly of the rich leads to stagnancy and collapse. Investment is needed at the bottom, both to encourage growth and to ensure the basic human rights our State affirms for each person (which will also foster growth).
In times of economic contraction this fallacy consistently leads us into making cuts to the vulnerable at every election and continuing huge pensions, bonuses and other incentives for those at the top to keep doing what they’ve always done.
It is clear from the usual strategic leaks that this budget will be no different. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The Government states that job creation in the construction sector is a priority, but plans to impose a tax that will further depress the property sector. This tax will worsen the plight of distressed mortgage holders and therefore our banks. I note that the EU has not yet agreed to help us on the banking debt issue. Any money gathered through this tax will be swallowed up servicing the debt. This new tax is not just immoral, unpopular and regressive – it is stupid. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I hope that the budget will reflect the Canons of Taxation proposed by Adam Smith (1723-1790), the “Father of Economics”, as follows: Equality: Tax payments should be proportional to income. Certainty: Tax liabilities should be clear and certain. Convenience of Payment: Taxes should be collected at a time and in a manner convenient for the taxpayer. Economy of Collection : Taxes should not be expensive to collect and should not discourage business.
These principles apply to much of what has been said by your correspondents on this matter in recent weeks. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I agree with Finnian E Mathews (December 1st) that the Government should refrain from the “standard spin comments” about not shying away “from taking the tough decisions” when the budget is announced. Most people, as he says, have to take tough decisions on a daily basis.
I have some reservations, however, on the effectiveness of the threat by Mr Mathews that the crew should stage a “Mutiny on the Austerity”.
The pay, rations and living conditions have, as Mr Mathews says, worsened recently, but the time for mutiny on the ship was way back when she was called the good ship Celtic Tiger.
At that time the captain and his officers borrowed too much in foreign ports and did not spend the money wisely. Mutiny now might see the ship shut out from all ports. – Yours, etc,