ATM Card Tax Rant Before Bedtime

My child aged 5 had a bank account opened by her grandparents to put her Christmas & birthday money in. Much to my surprise, DIRT was charged. I wrote to the Revenue Commissioners pointing out that the DIRT equalled something like 4 weeks income (ie pocket money) and queried it. Alas, although the person I dealt with did have a sense of humour, they pointed out that otherwise everyone would open a/cs in their kids name.

Income tax was introduced as a temporary measure by the British government to underwrite the Napoleanic war.

It's also an anti-competitive measure. It poses a big problem to new entrants to the credit card market. If you want to change credit cards, there's now the extra hassle of having to close one credit card and getting the documentation from them that you have already paid the tariff before opening the second. How many people just can't be bothered?

I used to have two credit cards, one of which I carried only as a backup. It was very handy when I was on holiday once and there were problems reading the magnetic strip of my primary card. When the tax came in, I cancelled the second card. Now I have to hope that I don't run into similar issues.