69% Tax? No Thanks!

AngelofFire

Originally posted by daveirl


I'd like to hear what guys like Irish1 think of the taxation suggestions?

Id rather hear what a few snotty nosed armchair progressive democrats think of the fact that ireland has the highest stealth taxes,highest consumer pricing index in the EU and a higher number of paye workers paying at the top rate of the national taxation rate than in any country in europe.

bonkey

Originally posted by Sparks
I mean, I might as well vote for "me mate jacko from down the pub" at that rate...

Well, given that so many of the electorate seem to vote for "shur hasn't my family always voted <insert politcal party here>" anyway, I don't think its that bad an idea voting for a party where you have at least identified with them on some somewhat-relevant issues, rather than just showing a sheep-mentality to a party.

If you look at how they've gone about garnering support, as well, you'll notice that they've started by targetting a section of society where I think it is fair to say that many will not be as concerned with the finer points of economics, foreign policy, etc. that the posters here may be, and instead will be looking for on-the-ground changes (which Sinn Fein do seem to do at a local level) and a promise (it may be an empty one, but what election promise isn't) that with more power they will do more to improve the lot of said people.

Sure....when you look at how they're gonna do this, it comes up well short...but look at it from the other perspective.

Working class bloke has been shafted nationally and forgotten locally by the established main partys. Along come this bunch of lads, promise to make things better locally, and make some headway. They promise to do likewise at a national level. Why not vote for them rather than the shower who've spent your life letting you down?

This obviously sets a limit on how far Sinn Fein can rise before they will have to improve the quality of their national-level political visions and plans.....but until they get to that point, it doesn't seem to be a major hindrance amongst the all-too-neglected section of the electorate they are working for/on.

Maybe their plan is to cash in on that support, spend a term or two with a modicum of voting power to wield as they formulate how to move forward and grab the next chunk of electorate....which is when we'll see an improvement of their plans coupled with a better track-record.

I seriously think that too many people are looking at the problems facing Sinn Fein if tehy want power in the next election. If you're not looking at the next election, then remember your ceding them 4-ish years to get to where you're complaining they ain't at today.

If a week is a long time in politics.....4 years is, well, 200-odd long times. Thats, like, an eon, man.

jc

Originally posted by bonkey

Maybe their plan is to cash in on that support, spend a term or two with a modicum of voting power to wield as they formulate how to move forward and grab the next chunk of electorate....which is when we'll see an improvement of their plans coupled with a better track-record.
jc

Key word there is maybe because nobody knows otherwise.
What have they got now? 7 or 8% of the vote and thats largely drawn from how they have "on the ground" got things done for the marginalised.

Problem for Sinn Féin is though the Vast majority of the voters aren't marginalised.
They may be píssed off with the various other parties from time to time but when it comes to voting for government their self interest comes into play.

I'd love to see the balancing act that SF have to do to reconcile continuing to look after the marginaised that now vote for them with policies to attract the much greater numbers of the not so marginalised.
This is a country after all that has to import workers in their thousands to fill the less well paid jobs and thats a symptom of a "majority" in society who are not so marginalised if ever I saw one.
Winning over that electorate might make North Belfast politics look like a "sinch" in comparison.

BuffyBot

So you're saying that SF have no plan to fix the problems and haven't carried out a full study of those problems?

This is the major problem I have with this. I'd like to see something more concrete before I'd buy into a policy such as this.

bonkey

Originally posted by Earthman
Key word there is maybe because nobody knows otherwise.

So what?

Does anyone really believe they know the plans etc. of any of the established parties? Surely we're not gonna believe those election promises and the other guff we get given.

The simple truth is that small parties do not have the details on everything because they don't need then while they are so small.

jc

Irish04

SF economic policies to cost E5bn more a year

The Examiner have completed what they believe to be first detailed study of Sinn Féin's economic policies. Sinn Féin's policy of increasing tax, while previously stated by them has been shown to be having a "15% increase in the higher rate from 42% to 57%" and an increase in PRSI to 12%, giving you an astounding 69% rate of taxation.

The Simple fact is, this study was carried out by a Right Wing Economist, who admitted he was biased because he was coming from a totally different point of view

article6

Originally posted by Irish04
The Simple fact is, this study was carried out by a Right Wing Economist, who admitted he was biased because he was coming from a totally different point of view

How do the economist's political views affect the truth of the figures? Are you accusing him of falsifying Sinn Féin documents to support his own position?

BuffyBot

The simple truth is that small parties do not have the details on everything because they don't need then while they are so small.

But if they are to grow to be a "big" party, they'll need some more details before people will put their trust in them, won't they?

shotamoose

Originally posted by article6
How do the economist's political views affect the truth of the figures? Are you accusing him of falsifying Sinn Féin documents to support his own position?

Well he (Colin Hunt of Goodbody) is (a) wrong and (b) deliberately misleading.

The article says Sinn Fein want to increase health spending to 9% of GDP. As far as I can see, this is wrong. They say they want to raise it to the European average level of 8%, from it's present level of 6.1%. Since GDP was €134,786m in 2003, that's an increase of about €2560m. Hunt goes for €3bn.

Now, there's all sorts of ways a government could pay for such a rise, apart from a simple hike in the tax rate: Efficiency savings, cutbacks in other policy areas, more effort to close tax loopholes and shelters, a reduction in various exemptions, increases in other forms of taxation, adding in another higher tax band.

In fact, this is pretty much what Sinn Fein proposed in their 2003 pre-budget submission: Reviews of tax shelters, increases in corporation tax, a freeze on investments into the SSIA, "A new 50% super tax band for individual incomes more than €100,000". The Examiner mentions some of these at the end of the article but prints Hunt's excitable "15% tax increase!" fantasies further up. There's no sign that he's thought about this much so he's probably completely wrong on those figures too. This 'analysis' is not worth the paper he probably didn't bother writing it on.

If you're going to criticise Sinn Fein, at least do so on the basis of their actual policies. Or for the laughably self-serving 'History of the Conflict' on their website.

cdebru

How do the economist's political views affect the truth of the figures? Are you accusing him of falsifying Sinn Féin documents to support his own position

its scare mongering they tried to scare people away from sinn fein by going on about the IRA that didn't work so now they try the old they will ruin the economy
something fianna fail started with a couple of weeks ago
the fact of the matter is that we have one of the lowest tax rates in europe
but we have the highest percentage of the workforce paying at the top rate

we have been sold a lie by ff and the pds
they have decreased the headline tax rates
but we are paying more tax now as a percentage of income than we did 10 or 15 years ago
the people who have really benefited are the high earners there tax rates have come down
just over the average industrial wage pays the high rate of tax

jank

If you read the articale in question you will notice that they are basiclly full of " we want to sell newspapers"= "bull****e"


IS there going to be a review on an other partys economic policys tommorow??

I hope there is!

Villain

Originally posted by jank
If you read the articale in question you will notice that they are basiclly full of " we want to sell newspapers"= "bull****e"


IS there going to be a review on an other partys economic policys tommorow??

I hope there is!

Well if there is everyone will probably come out and say it's not true.

Bash away because I don't think too many Voters will believe what they read in the Examiner.

Meh

Originally posted by cdebru
they have decreased the headline tax rates
but we are paying more tax now as a percentage of income than we did 10 or 15 years ago

This is demonstrably false.

http://www.oecd.org/document/51/0,2340,en_2649_201185_30486387_119690_1_1_1,00.html
According to the forthcoming edition of the OECD's annual publication Taxing Wages, the tax wedge for a typical married production worker with two children, measured as a percentage of the overall cost to the employer, has declined over the last seven years by about one and half percentage points across the OECD's 30 member states.

Ireland saw the biggest fall in the tax wedge from 1996 to 2003, with a reduction of 18.3 percentage points,

http://www.oecd.org/document/49/0,2340,en_2649_34533_30481201_1_1_1_1,00.html
At the average earnings level, single workers without children pay over 40 per cent of their annual wages in personal income tax and employee social security contributions in Belgium, Denmark and Germany. In Greece, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Spain the personal average tax rate was below 20 per cent.

It is interesting to note that when cash benefits are taken into account, married one-earner couples face a negative burden in Ireland and Luxembourg because cash benefits exceed the income tax and social security payments.

ReefBreak

Originally posted by irish1
Well if there is everyone will probably come out and say it's not true.

Bash away because I don't think too many Voters will believe what they read in the Examiner.

Ah, so the Examiner has no credibility now, as well as any other paper that likes to justifiably criticise the Shinners. Before you reply, may I remind you that ex-terrorist (I believe torturing people was allegedly his speciality) used to (still does?) write a column for the Examiner.

Villain

Originally posted by ReefBreak
Ah, so the Examiner has no credibility now, as well as any other paper that likes to justifiably criticise the Shinners. Before you reply, may I remind you that ex-terrorist (I believe torturing people was allegedly his speciality) used to (still does?) write a column for the Examiner.

I never said it had no credibilty, I simply said I didn't think too many Voters would believe this article, there is a difference.

The Examiner piece is bulls*it, and some people here that aren't so anti SF can actually see that, but I wouldn't expect you to think anything else.

Bash away reefbreak, but to be quite honest its all getting a little borring at this stage. If people were so interested in the policys of the current government and their failings then maybe we might actually get somewhere, but instead people want to bash and bash and bash and bash some more a party that has approx 8%-10% of the vote because there beliefs don't confirm to the main partys line.

ReefBreak

Depite their low percentage of the total vote, I will continue to "bash away" while Sinn Féin continue to link themselves to terrorists. I will continue to do this because it embarrasses me as an Irish person, that other Irish people would even consider voting for them.

ReefBreak

Originally posted by irish1
I never said it had no credibilty, I simply said I didn't think too many Voters would believe this article, there is a difference.

The Examiner piece is bulls*it, and some people here that aren't so anti SF can actually see that, but I wouldn't expect you to think anything else.B]

I imagine that you consider any article that criticises Shinner's is bullshít?

ionapaul

Does the fact that Sinn Fein promises to reduce taxes blind people to the fact they are linked on many levels to an illegal army of kneecappers, murderers and bombers?

I believe this is why those of us who bash and bash and will continue to bash are doing so. I would rather have a government containing a few corrupt and money-hungry members than one containing murderers, terrorist activists and amoral thugs. But that's just me I guess.

Villain

Originally posted by ReefBreak
I imagine that you consider any article that criticises Shinner's is bullshít?

NO Not one based on proper facts and wrote in an unbiased manner

Villain

Originally posted by ionapaul
Does the fact that Sinn Fein promises to reduce taxes blind people to the fact they are linked on many levels to an illegal army of kneecappers, murderers and bombers?

I believe this is why those of us who bash and bash and will continue to bash are doing so. I would rather have a government containing a few corrupt and money-hungry members than one containing murderers, terrorist activists and amoral thugs. But that's just me I guess.

The IRA have been on a ceasefire for many years, SF are committed to peaceful democratic means, if you can't understand that then thats your problem!

Meh

Originally posted by irish1
The IRA have been on a ceasefire for many years, SF are committed to peaceful democratic means

If they're committed to peaceful democratic means, then why do they still need their illegal army?

BuffyBot

Wasn't there a debate about taxation policy somewhere in here...?

bonkey

Originally posted by BuffyBot
Wasn't there a debate about taxation policy somewhere in here...?

I'd like to think so.

If this thread is just another "Kick/defend SF/IRA and those who support it/them" then I don't really see the point....

jc

Villain

Originally posted by BuffyBot
Wasn't there a debate about taxation policy somewhere in here...?

Ya when you find it let me know, people always go back to the IRA when they try to bash SF, old and and not very interesting.

sceptre

Originally posted by irish1
Ya when you find it let me know

It's about a page back

Originally posted by bonkey
The simple truth is that small parties do not have the details on everything because they don't need then while they are so small.
jc

With respect Bonkey,I disagree.
no party should expect to put their policies in front of an electorate without expecting them to be critically analyised from a cost point of view by their rivals or their prospective voters.
Untill SF do this which includes a reality check involving the self interest of the majority of voters then their growth potential is very limited.

Thats where I await with interest how they are going to reconcile their care for the marginalised with the wants(often selfish) of the rest of the electorate.
Socialist parties didn't flourish in the 1980's when unemployment,taxes and emmigration were at major highs.
Democratic Left ended up merging with labour ditching much of it's more extreme left wing philosophy having seen the writing on the wall as regards peoples selfish wants.
I don't see a road to Damascus conversion of the majority of comfortable reasonably well off people towards neo communist ideals.
It's not in their nature.

What I do see though is (if they want votes) a slow conversion of SF down the path of realism and a slow recognition by them that votes eventually have to be bought by giving people what they want and not by deciding that what SF believe as of now is what they want.

shotamoose

Originally posted by Earthman

I don't see a road to Damascus conversion of the majority of comfortable reasonably well off people towards neo communist ideals.

This is getting ridiculous. In what way are their actual policies 'neo-communist'? As opposed to in your own head, for example. I dislike Sinn Fein intensely, but I haven't seen any evidence of neo-communism, just fairly mild socialism. And no, they're not the same thing.

Originally posted by shotamoose
This is getting ridiculous. In what way are their actual policies 'neo-communist'? As opposed to in your own head, for example. I dislike Sinn Fein intensely, but I haven't seen any evidence of neo-communism, just fairly mild socialism. And no, they're not the same thing.

It's not easy to get particulars as SF don't provide them.
I did have one councillor call to my door at the last election blurting out that Banks would be better nationalised.
Then theres this

Ultimately, this must translate into local communities being allowed to become centrally involved in planning and making decisions about economic development programmes which directly affect them.

Central planning-thats communist isn't it?

As regards them being mild socialists as opposed to neo communists-thats all down to perception.
It's in my head certainly,It's my perception untill I see some beef to convince me otherwise.
Having offices in Havana Cuba hasn't helped that perception either...
The labour party are a nicely socially driven political party-do they have ties with Cuba?
Then theres SF's historical ties with North Korea

The main link between Sinn Fein and North Korea is Gerry MacLochlainn. The former Sinn Fein organiser in Wales was released from Maidstone Prison in November 1983 after serving two and a half years of a sentence for conspiracy to cause explosions; before becoming the main representative of Sinn Fein in Great Britain. More recently, he has been a Sinn Fein appointed councillor in Derry and Mitchell McLaughlin's constituency manager. MacLochlainn came into contact with circles on Britain that were sympathetic to the North Korean regime and its official ideology known as Juche; such as the GIFAC and Harpal Brar's Indian Workers Association (Harpal Brar is now president of the Stalin Society). Sinn Fein developed friendly relations with those circles. MacLochlainn even wrote a booklet entitled "The Irish Republican and Juche Conception of National Self-Dignity are One" (London: Mosquito Press, 1985). The publication was about the similarities existing between the Irish Republican and Juche ideologies. The Juche ideology is a mixture of radical nationalism and socialism, and would be close to Maoism. It is not surprising that during its more "thirdworldist" days, some Sinn Fein members were sympathetic to such views. The world, Ireland and Korea have changed a lot since 1985, but as late as November 1999, MacLochlainn was a speaker along with Harpal Brar at a commemoration of the 1917 Great October Revolution organised by the Stalin Society in Leicester.

Regarding information on Sinn Féins policies,they sure do know about utopia...
All I've read on the website is a doom and gloom analysis of whats going on in Ireland.
Unemployment rates around 4% aren't something to cry about,increasing corporation taxes on companies that have by their presence here factored them into their decision to provide tens of thousands of jobs here would be though, if it means they go.

shotamoose

Originally posted by Earthman
It's not easy to get particulars as SF don't provide them.

They provide enough to see that they're not 'neo-communist'. In their pre-budget statement, for example.

Central planning-thats communist isn't it?

That's only central planning if you re-arrange the words of the sentence to give it a different meaning, which I think is something of a slipperly slope.

Rather, it is local communities being centrally involved in planning and "making decisions about economic development programmes which directly affect them". If this is neo-communist than New Labour must be neo-communist too, as local community involvement in policy development is a long-established policy of theirs, for example in the New Deal for Communities, extensive public consultations on the London Plan and the Mayor's Economic Development Strategies, and public involvement in local authority planning policy and decisions.

I'm all in favour of people drawing Sinn Fein into a real debate on their actual policy proposals. Baselessly labelling them 'neo-communist' just ensures an immediate lapse into the kind of time-honoured mud-slinging we've already seen too much of on this thread.

cdebru

centrally involved in planning

is not the same as

Central planning-thats communist isn't it?

that kind of slippery mixing of words and taking things out of context is disgraceful

as for sinn fein it is a broad church or was anyway
there was stalinist and trotskyists
maoist enviromentalists marxists republicans nationalists
anti abortionists pro choice socialists, liberals and pretty much anything else you can think of
mostly united on the national question
other issues that could divide the party where usually put on the back burner to be sorted out when the war was won
such as abortion

it is broadly left leaning
definitely not communist although i dont doubt that some of its member would have communist leanings

abit like the anc in south africa ( iam not comparing their struggles so dont go there)
the anc had communists and socialists of all types in fact its vice president was a communist
as well as plenty of other political beliefs in its ranks
all united on the struggle for freedom
since it has taken government it is definitely not undertaken any communists policies

but it is still probably broadly left leaning