They won't be selling the houses...To suggest they will all uproot their family and sell their houses and emigrate to avoid a further reduction in household income, is risible.
Where do you think these people are going to go exactly? You think they will walk into a job in England that is just as well paid? Most will have families and other commitments that are not all that easy to just walk away from, not to mention the fact that they will find it tough to sell their houses. This idea that people earning over €75K are all going to up sticks and leave is crazy.
So you think we should screw over the high earners because we can?75K is an arbitary figure and by no means a fortune. There are plenty of people earning that level of income who are not mobile. If you go through the households of the middle-class suburbs, you'll find plenty of people in that net. To suggest they will all uproot their family and sell their houses and emigrate to avoid a further reduction in household income, is risible.
It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy (expletive deleted).
Should also point out that the 46% figure is also incorrect - you've left out the 6% income levy. So it's 41% tax, 5% health and 6% income levy = 52%.Should also point out that people earning over €75,036 don't pay tax at 56%. Private sector employees earning over €75,036 pay tax at 46% on their income over this figure because they have reached the PRSI ceiling
Because plenty of high earners DO pay all the tax they are obliged to pay - which is at least their fair share (how would you define this?) and probably way beyond! So your suggestion is to hammer the compliant high earners to somehow get at the 'dodgers'? - brilliant! And, as mentioned above, there is now a minimum tax rate so none should get away with paying little tax.Also, plenty of high earners pay very little tax at all due to various tax-incentive schemes so why shouldn't the PRSI ceiling be abolished, especially when they aren't paying their share of PAYE.
From reading this thread it seems many people are eager for tax increases.
Why?
I just can't understand it. We read about shocking waste of money, overpaid x, y and z, bank bailouts, NAMA, expensive blanket guarantees - and yet, people still want to pay more??? WTF.
There would be none of these issues if we had one tax rate across the board and no loopholes. That would be the fairest solution.
Okay, I'll rephrase the question. So, your suggestion is to hammer the 'non-availing of tax breaks high earners' to somehow get at the high earners who currently pay low tax by availing of tax breaks?Someone who avails of a tax-incentive scheme is NOT a "dodger" as you put it.
The minimum tax initially targetted those earning over 500K - and this has been quite successful (as your article shows). The minimum tax then moved on to target the 250K to 500K earners - the figures you and Joan Burton quoted were before this had started. And, as the article states, there is a long tail on some of the old tax breaks to get used up so it'll be a few years before tax take reaches status quo - but the system as it currently stands has massively reduced scope for tax breaks reducing tax to low levels.And for 86 people with earnings between €250K and €500K to be paying less than 10% tax is a disgrace. Do you regard this as their "fair share" or how would you define it?
orka;Should also point out that the 46% figure is also incorrect - you've left out the 6% income levy. So it's 41% tax, 5% health and 6% income levy = 52%.
orka:Revenue stats (2005 latest available year) show that something like 15% of all tax is paid by fewer than 1% of taxpayers and 40% of all tax was paid by fewer than 5% of tax payers.
Here's a link if you would like to read the source document rather than Labour's interpretation: http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/publications/reports/2010/taxreliefs.pdfAlso the figure of 86 is from 234 people in that earnings bracket which is over 1/3 of that bracket.
Most higher earners (see above) don't 'pay little or no tax'. Most pay lots and lots. But I agree that everyone should pay a reasonable amount.I'd like to see people who pay little or no tax, so the lower and higher earners, to contribute a reasonable amount.
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