OECD advises Ireland to increase inheritance taxes

Are you happy that the person who works hard pays over half their marginal income in taxes?

doing the right thing when houses are 3.5 the average income is much easier than when they are 9.5 times the average income.
What’s happening now is that person who wants to do the right thing and stand on their own two feet can’t, unless they are earning €100k a year and aren’t paying rent.
we are heading towards a smaller property owning class with people on median incomes priced out of the market.
Is that what you want?
 
That made me laugh. Thanks.
I work, own property and am comfortably within the top few percent of earners.

I don’t believe in a ‘rights based’ society and I think that Equality of Outcome as a government policy is not only wrong, I believe it is evil.

What I do believe in is equality of opportunity, certainly as a driving principal when setting government policy.
 
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But Purple, I work hard and pay more than half my marginal income in taxes.

I then took the 48% that I’m allowed to keep, paid the big multiple you’ve quoted for a house, and feathered some builder’s nest with a costly renovation.

Now you seem to want the State to take a further piece of my pie. That’s pretty annoying when you’re only getting 48% of every extra euro you make in the first instance.
 
@Gordon Gekko, but you’ll be dead so it won’t be your pie anymore. Increased property taxes will also reduce property prices so the next guy will pay less for the property.
If you still have the big mortgage from buying the house you’ll be able to deduct that when calculating the tax liability.
 
Firstly I am one of those people who is in the high tax bracket and gets nothing from all the tax I pay.

Secondly I am working since I am 16. I have sacrificed for what I have.

Thirdly people don't have to be earning over €100k to get a house. A bit of foresight when people start working and start saving and you would be surprised the impact on how much less you need to borrow.

Fourthly there are plenty of good properties for sale for less than €350k. People are unwilling to "rough it", they want the property to be energy efficient, solar powered "A" rated but someone else should pay for it.

Finally I have worked hard for my house and any assets I have amassed. If and when I die it is mine to do with as I want. My family will benefit from my hard work and sacrifice.
 
I’ll be shot for saying it, but if you take out the whingers who are afraid of hard graft and sacrifice, plus the wasters who make a living from gaming the system, the housing problem isn’t as big as it’s made out.

I’m sick of stories about nurses and guards who can’t afford houses in Dublin. Why not commute?! I commuted for years and never moaned about it.

As cities grow, they become more expensive nearer the centre. If we all lived in London, I’d love to live in Kensington or Mayfair but I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

If you’re on €40k a year, either work to improve your lot in life or try and meet someone and pool together. But either way, stop moaning about not being able to afford an apartment in Grand Canal Dock and buy a place in Naas, Gorey, or whereever like anyone else in any other country would do.

The problem is, everyone wants to live in Manhattan but that can’t be the case.
 
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Purple said:
That would mean businesses and farms would have to be sold with each generation to pay the inheritance tax. That would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
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Selling a business or farm doesn't cost jobs.


I don't care. Capital is capital, whether it's a business, a few acres of rushes or a three-bed semi.

Remove the loopholes, lower the rates.
 
The Horseman said:
Firstly I am one of those people who is in the high tax bracket and gets nothing from all the tax I pay.
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Really, nothing? Absolutely nothing? Cant think of a single thing?

Maybe your family need a little more foresight or if they were willing to "rough it" they'd get by? Can they not work hard to amasses their own assets? What's wrong with them?

Everyone has a sob story and we've made policy based on individual ideology before. Is it seriously beyond people to examine a policy in the context of its societal benefit? It might actually go someway to address the issues that are being whinged about!


So I'm confused now. All the hard workers who are willing to "rough it" and sacrifice and who get nothing for their taxes want to either a) receive an inheritance off the back of someone else's hard work or b) want to pass on the fruits of their hard work, to give someone they know a leg up so they don't have to work as hard as everyone else?

So whoever has the wealthiest friends/relations should get an easy ride?
 
A lot of the people who say they can't buy a house today are the very ones who decided to get their degrees and live the high life with Mums and Dads money, and they now find themselves at 35/40 years old frightened and broke and not an idea about life in a lot of cases. The baby has arrived, maybe 2, they haven't a clue what has hit them, don't know how to cope, have friends in the media so can be part of the crew who shout loudest and know they'll get coverage, cry the tears talk to Joe and blame everyone bar look in the mirror at themselves. I guess Purple would love more of parents and grandparents hard earned assets to be used to finance their lifestyles AGAIN. I've no intention of agreeing that money I have made from property is easy money, I know plenty of people who got burnt over the years with property investment, same people got up again, learnt lessons and invested again, and in some cases again and again. Of course they should be well entitled to their gains, plenty of tax already paid and might I say, squandered by those who took the taxes. You can shout all you want Purple, tell us what a high earner you are, etc. You're still barking up the wrong tree with your take on what easy/soft money is. I once heard that if everyone was given $5 million on their 16th birthday, it would be the same 2/3% that would end up making anything from it. A socialist country is all good and well, until those shouting and breaking the law start being given what they want to shut them up.
 
The Horseman said:
Firstly I am one of those people who is in the high tax bracket and gets nothing from all the tax I pay
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With respect, regardless of all the societal issues we have, you live in a first world country that is relatively safe and politically stable. That doesn't happen because our renowned spirit of céad míle fáilte.
Lots of people, your neighbours, your community and beyond work hard, paying taxes, to make it a collective reality, over the generations, for most of us.
A consequence of having access to education etc. Your taxes help pay for that, and for others who also pay taxes.
 
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I never said I was the only one paying tax. I am well aware others pay tax aswell. The issue I have is that I and many others are expected to keep giving (the squeezed middle) and others just keep taking.

When exactly will those who take actually give something back? For example why can't people on unemployment benefit jobseekers allowance work in the community as part of their benefit payment? I work full time and I actually volunteer in my local residents association cleaning the area trimming hedges etc. Work the council should be doing but will not as they don't have the resources and the only way they will get them is by us paying more tax.

We all know people who have made a career out of scamming the system but when anyone tries to call them out they get a hard time.

Please spare me this "we are all in this together" mantra. We are not some people are takers and always will be and the more they are given the more they will continue to take.
 

People who bought or built their houses in the first instance paid plenty of taxes to begin with development levies, property tax, stamp duty, vat on materials etc. They then spend 25 to 30 years paying back their mortgage from income that is heavily taxed. Added to that mortgage rates in some instances was around 15 per cent. And now people want to tax the passing of that property onto next generation, that is unfair and unjust.

Alot of people complaining about not getting on property ladder at the moment in their late 30s or early 40's, what did they do with 20 years of income? I would suggest alot of them took a few years out to Australia, came back broke, borrowed money for the big wedding and for the two PCP cars in the drive of their rented accommodation.

If the issue is wealth redistribution and wealth inequality Ireland is actually doing okay in that respect as reported in the last few days in the Irish Times.

We have to look at where our taxes are being spent, giving people who choose not to work social welfare and a free house for life plus a state pension of taxes of people who slaved to put a roof over their heads incentives the welfare state. I don't want to tar all social welfare recipients with the same brush but these issues seem to be skirted over in discussions like this.
 
You appear to know that I actually do get something so please enlighten me as to what I don't realise I am getting.

I am old enough to remember when we had no choice but to rough it.

It appears your societal ideology is that we all should work for the common good and we are all equal. Can I suggest you read animal farm and see how this ideology plays out.
 
The Horseman said:
I never said I was the only one paying tax.
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I know, you said you get nothing from the tax you pay.

This is nonsense. As I pointed out to you, you live in a first world developed country. The standard of living you enjoy is not solely because of your own hard graft, it is because of the platform provided to you (and most of us) from the generations of other taxpayers and working people that have gone before us.
You have used that platform to give yourself a standard of living that you seem content with, fair play to you. But do not think the taxes you pay are for your individual benefit, they are not. They are for the collective benefit of us all so that others today, and future generations may be afforded the same opportunities that were afforded to you.

The Horseman said:
When exactly will those who take actually give something back?
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But you are a taker. The taxes you pay, relative to standard of living in the country you live in are diddly-squat. It is pure tokenism. Even if you pay €100k in tax, what does that provide? A university professor? The heating bill for a large secondary school? Security guards at a Dublin Bus depot?

Its nothing, on a grand scale it amounts to very little of what is required to run this country. If you were to leave tomorrow and not pay the tax, no-one would miss you (in a tax paying context). The tax you, or I pay, in an individual context are an absolute irrelevance. Completely meaningless. They are only worth something in the context of the overall contribution from everyone, from every source - income tax, USC, VAT, CT, etc, etc.

Your taxes, and mine, are takers giving something back.
 
noproblem said:
In a lot of cases. to give to the takers
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My point is we are all takers, even the highest paying taxpayer. All we are doing is contributing back for what was provided to us so that it will be provided to others in the future.
We can argue to death what % of income, at what income level, should it be higher VAT, or more carbon tax, higher CT, lower CAT etc....etc.. We can argue how much should be spent on health, education, should we cut this service or pay more into some other service etc, etc.

All of that is fair enough, but there is nobody alive today in this country that is paying a level of tax at an individual level that comes anywhere close to being of relevance if it they did not pay it. Some people like to talk as if their taxes pay for teachers, gardai, nurses, roadworks, everything under the sun.
Nonsense. What the combined effort of teachers, nurses, gardai etc provide in return dwarfs anybodys individual tax contribution into near insignificance.

Pre-Covid, I think it cost about €50,000,000,000 to run this country.

I ask anyone to put their individual tax contribution up against that and ask themselves, if they were not here to pay their individual tax contribution would anyone blink an eye?

On an individual basis, our tax contributions are a near irrelevance.
 

Of the 50 billion plus to run the country 21 billion goes on social welfare. That is a staggering percentage of our overall budget. The social welfare and community welfare system is spending huge amounts - is it all being spent wisely. Are there people abusing the system whereby they go with a sob story to the community welfare officer and get top ups when added to their social welfare combined they are better off than the ordinary worker who goes into work.

You mention on an individual level our tax is irrelevant but combined it is significant. The state collects near 22 billion in income tax so when you see 21 billion spent on social welfare you have to ask questions what is it being spent on. This is not to undermine the genuine entitlements people have to social welfare.

Furthermore companies pay corporation taxes on the fruits of the ordinary workers labour which often gets overlooked.

People who have worked all their lives and made sacrifices and saved and scrimped should be allowed pass on their wealth to their children. Reducing inheritance tax thresholds won't necessarily achieve what is intended. What's stopping the parent going to ATM every week and handing over 300 /400/ 500 cash to the child or buying material items for them.
 

That’s not a great argument.

However, what if Sinn Fein/IRA get into power and bring in a supertax for incomes over €100k?

Chances are LOTS of people with the scope or capacity to go the extra mile and make a few bob extra won’t bother their backsides.

There are crazy stats in the this country where the top 5% pay half the income tax or something like that.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
That’s not a great argument.
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I think it's a fantastic argument.

I am putting it up to those people who regularly proclaim that their taxes pays for the schools, the hospitals, the roads, the welfare, blah...blah...

When in fact, their (and mine) taxes, on an individual basis relative to the grand scheme of actual public spending - pay for diddly-squat.
A near irrelevance.

We live off the graft of layers, upon layers, of previous generations. Those who paid for the establishment of our State and before, our education system, healthcare and welfare. For all the flaws within and through the decades, without them and without those who laid the foundations of where we live today, we would have little to nothing today.
Our responsibility as a collective is to maintain what went before, and to sustain and develop that for future generations. That is what tax is for.

Your contribution is only relevant when combined with the contributions of the rest of the citizenry.

So drop the mega-phone, drop the pretentiousness, drop the self-entitlement, as an individual taxpayer you pay for next to nothing in the grand scheme of things. You, like me and everyone else, are a taker first and foremost.
What we pay in tax is our contribution back.

Gordon Gekko said:
Chances are LOTS of people with the scope or capacity to go the extra mile and make a few bob extra won’t bother their backsides.
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The "LOTS of people with the scope or capacity to go the extra mile and make a few bob extra" have never been deterred by higher taxes, have never not bothered their backsides.
They are the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the grafters, the workers. They will always persevere. It is how humanity has moved from the stone age, the agricultural age, industrial age to the technological age.
Those who don't bother their backsides will simply be replaced by those who will work.

Gordon Gekko said:
There are crazy stats in the this country where the top 5% pay half the income tax or something like that.
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Meaningless without taking into account earnings and tax credits etc.

If you earn €100k and I earn €50k and we both pay 50% tax, is that unfair? You pay 66% of tax collected between us.
If government gives us both a tax free allowance of €10k on both our incomes is that unfair? Even if it means you now pay 72% of tax collected between us?
 
I note you made no response on the part of my post asking why those who are takers don't give anything back.

Your post speaks volumes about you. You expect people to give to finance the lifestyles of those who take more than they contribute and are not willing to give back (not necessarily financial).

Your views indicate you are on the left of politics and I am yet to hear a convincing argument of how these policies are going to be funded.

And before you say tax the rich, tax the multinationals you do realise we are a small open economy who can't dictate trading terms to either sector. They can and will happily go elsewhere. They are here for a reason and if we lose their tax irrespective of how much they pay how do you suggest we fund this shortfall?
 
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