What about a campaign to encourage people to pay the Household Charge?

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Folks this thread is about how to encourage people to pay the Household Charge.

There are plenty of other threads for discussing the fairness or unfairness of the charge and Data Protection issues. I have deleted the off-topic posts. Feel free to raise them on the appropriate threads or start new threads.

Brendan
 
ajapale said:
I think the idea of a campaign to encourage people to pay the property precursor tax (Household Charge) is naive and a little daft.

I would like an option to "pay under protest". Perhaps a tick box to register this and a tally at the end of the year.

Or how about decent discounts for early payers? Say a sliding scale -20% two months early -10% one month early. 0% on time etc.
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I think decent discounts for early payers would encourage payment of the property precursor tax.

Are there any examples either here or abroad of successful campaigns encouraging citizens to pay a specific new tax?

I still think the idea, while well intentioned, is just a little daft.

If I were asked to implement such a campaign I would first of all do some decent professional market research (qualitative and quantitative) to determine the target audience (customers). I would then engage professional Advertising Agencies / PR companies determine the message and decide on the media. I would then put in place a metric to determine how successful the campaign was.

Much as I dislike the property precursor tax I detest Rabbit's TV tax and the associated public campaigns to encourage people to pay it.

When I was a teenager there was a public service ad aimed at youngsters to discourage them from drinking. The actor says something like " we go out every Saturday night and get completely locked" and the other actor shrugs his shoulders and says "yeh". The second actors response summed up the response of the target audience as "so what".

Any public service advertising will be up against it to be successful in my opinion.

Perhaps if the intention was to make payers feel better about paying a different approach might be taken.
 
ajapale said:
Any public service advertising will be up against it to be successful in my opinion. Perhaps if the intention was to make payers feel better about paying a different approach might be taken.
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I think people would feel a lot more positive (in so far as it's possible to be positive about paying taxes) if they could see taxes converted into tangible services. The past hasn't been a good indicator in this regard. Of course, the past doesn't always have to be the same as the future experience - but a seismic shift needs to take place in the way public money is used (rather than wasted).
 
It does seem as if there is an agenda here.
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Of course there is an agenda. It's to counteract the concerted campaign to discourage people from paying their household tax. There is a danger that people will get the impression that the majority are not going to pay their tax and I think it's important to counteract that view.

That campaign needs to be counteracted as, I believe, that the majority of people, believe that they should pay their taxes.

This is not about whether this is a good tax or a bad tax. That is being debated in other threads. There are lots of changes I would make to this tax. There are lots of changes I would make to other taxes. There are lots of changes I would make to the way tax revenue is spent. But they are separate arguments and they are discussed at lenght in other threads.


So far this has been described as
"a little daft"
"condescending"
"patronising"

But I don't understand why.

Is the campaign to discourage people to pay this tax
"a little daft"
"condescending"
"patronising" ?

Brendan
 
If the government introduced a mad and frankly silly tax (say a computer tax) in the morning would you be so eager to get people to pay?
 
Time said:
If the government introduced a mad and frankly silly tax (say a computer tax) in the morning would you be so eager to get people to pay?
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It's a hypothetical question as "mad and frankly silly" is a matter of personal opinion.

If the government introduced a tax which in my opinion. was a "mad and frankly silly tax". I would probably focus my energy on campaigning to have that tax revoked. I wouldn't campaign to discourage people from paying the tax.

It's very important to have balance in any debate. I have not heard anyone, other than myself, calling on people to pay this tax. I have heard lots of people calling on the public to break the law and not pay the tax.

A lot of people follow the crowd. If they think that the crowd is not paying, they won't pay. If they think that the crowd is paying, they will pay.

The "anti" campaign is very dangerous in this respect. They might succeed in converting a majority into not paying their taxes.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Here are some ideas -

Maybe organise a day in mid March "Pay your Household Charge today"
Issue stickers "I have paid my household charge"
Put up posters
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Yes, I find these aspects of the anti campaign quite daft and a little quaint. As another poster noted it smacks of "employee of the month" and "best boy in the class" schemes. Graffiti is another nasty part of this and previous "anti" campaigns but it is silly and not effective and should not be copied by any pro campaign.

If I were asked to do a pro-property precursor tax campaign I would proceed as outlined above (market research, targeted professional campaign with metrics to measure effective) and I certainly wouldn't ape the anti campaign.

To repeat some suggestions I made earlier.
ajapale said:
Are there any examples either here or abroad of successful campaigns encouraging citizens to pay a specific new tax?

If I were asked to implement such a campaign I would first of all do some decent professional market research (qualitative and quantitative) to determine the target audience (customers). I would then engage professional Advertising Agencies / PR companies determine the message and decide on the media. I would then put in place a metric to determine how successful the campaign was.

Any public service advertising will be up against it to be successful in my opinion.
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Brendan Burgess said:
That campaign needs to be counteracted as, I believe, that the majority of people, believe that they should pay their taxes.


Brendan
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I don't really think people do believe they should pay their taxes.
Only 12% paid so far.... so where is that "MAJORITY" gone?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
They might succeed in converting a majority into not paying their taxes.
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If this was the case, and a majority didnt pay - what would that mean? Should a tax that the majority are not in favour of be imposed?
Enda himself, in 1994, stated that it is morally wrong, unjust and unfair to tax a persons home. So why does he think its morally right now?

People dont have a viable form of protest other than not paying, so I can understand why this is the form it is taking.

Havent taxes that the majority disagreed with in the past been reversed? (Someone with a better knowledge of tax history in Ireland may be able to provide examples or dispute this).
 
truthseeker said:
Havent taxes that the majority disagreed with in the past been reversed?
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I don't know of this. But so what if it has happened.

Campaign against this tax. Don't vote for FG or Labour in the next election. Vote for People before Profit or Sinn Féin.

Brendan
 
People should be encouraged to pay it. The cost of pursuing those who do not pay or the cost of rescinding it and replacing it will another tax will result in less of the tax being spent productively and more being spent on administration.

It is very naive for people to think that they are 'getting one over' on the system by not paying.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't know of this. But so what if it has happened.
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Here.

The Dublin fight against water charges 1994-1997

Many councils decided to introduce water charges, while others such as Dublin initially decided not to do so. When the Dublin local government changed course and introduced water charges in 1994, this was met by an Anti-Water Charges Campaign including demonstrations and a boycott of the new charges. The city threatened to cut the water supply to those who did not pay. After lengthy court battles, some non-paying users were cut off, but the non-payment of water charges continued. On 19 December 1996, on the eve of general elections, the Minister for the Environment Brendan Howlin from the Labour Party of the Rainbow Government of Fine Gael–Labour Party–Democratic Left announced that the water charge was going to be replaced by a new system whereby the road tax collected in each area would be the source for local council funding.
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However, given popular discontent the new government chose not to pursue domestic water charges.
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So majority discontent can cause reversal of policy.
 
As I'm mentioned on another thread, I am not aware of receiving any information from official sources on this tax - no leaflet or letters, no posters in my area, havent seen any TV adverts etc. etc.

I still reckon that a very large portion of the population are totally unaware they have to pay by the end of the month. Yes, many may have heard some vague hearsay about the tax, but in the absence of any official publicity/notice will have no idea as to deadlines etc.

It's very easy for those of us who follow news/politics to become aware of it, but what if you are in the following category of person - one which is very common in this country - you'd have no idea:

- only read English tabloid newspapers
- have no interest in Irish 'politics' i.e. dont watch programmes like Frontline, Primetime etc or follow on websites like this one
- only watch sports and/or soap operas and/or reality tv and/or light entertainment on TV.
- dont listen to RTE Radio 1.
 
csirl said:
I am not aware of receiving any information from official sources on this tax - no leaflet or letters, no posters in my area, havent seen any TV adverts etc. etc. ..
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I would have to strongly disagree with your choices regarding the tv programmes and radio channel that you quote. Each of these choices would have serious questions to answer regarding biased attitudes to a number of political issues in the very recent past.
 
Brendan,
While i think your intentions are sincere, i think a campaign is the wrong way to go about it for reasons mentioned earlier by myself and others. I have not paid it yet and am 50 /50 as to whether I will.
Declan Ganley is tweeting about this this morning and makes some good points, see a sample below.

I've registered for the household tax & septic tank tax. I'd encourage others to do so & obey the law; not worth getting in trouble over it.
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The way to deal with the matter of the household & septic tank tax, is to remember who the legislators are that forced those taxes on us.
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Thing is, its all good & well for some politician to say they'll go to prison rather than pay the tax. They'll still be getting their salary
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This is a better way to convince people compared to an organised campaign....
maybe i will pay?
 
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