Creative taxes nobody will feel

dvpower

jimmmy wrote: »

The fairest thing would be to take away all pension levies, all tax reliefs on pensions, and pay nobody anything unless they were means tested.

As long as they don't then tax pension income.

Edit: They could also tax employers contributions to pensions as a benefit in kind.

hobochris

A tax on unhealthy foods such as crisp's,chips, chocolate would be a good idea in my opinion as it would encourage people to eat healthier.

The_Minister

fitz0 wrote: »

How about we just cut ministers pensions in half, or better yet make it proportionate to the amount of days they actually showed up at the dail?

Most of a Minister's work has nothing to do with the Dail.

Executive Steve

Villain wrote: »

Legalise Drugs and Prostitution and tax them highly and sent anyone caught trading either outside the law to Prison without trial, could get billions from it and get scum off the street

odd leap in logic...

you're pro legalisation and taxation of narcotics and sex, but you're anti free market to the extent that you would waive the right to a fair trial for someone lawfully selling a legal commodity?

and why would someone selling a legal commodity be "scum" who needs getting "off the street"?

you don't talk that way about coffee sellers, or publicans?

The Insider

nhughes100 wrote: »

The real big difference is that in the private sector I could do what I like with my 400 euro, ie I have a choice.

If you were in the private sector and you wanted to do whatever you wanted with the 400 euro you would be taxed on it first, we will say on the higher rate (I would guess if you are paying that much into your public pension you would be on the higher rate) so that leaves you with the guts of 250 euro give or take.

So you are telling me you would give up your public pension for an extra €250 a month? Bear in mind you would have no pension apart from the State one when you hit 65.

Bottle_of_Smoke

professore wrote: »

Yes, but you pay for the texts as part of your top-up, they're not free !!!! If they were free you would pay £ 0 for your top-up. It amazes me how people go on about their "free" texts. It's like a pub charging you for a glass and putting "free" beer in it.

Well you still get the £10 worth of calls. I know they're built into the top up price, but what I'm saying is phone operators might have to change theirr prices around to the point of it being pointless.

I top up £10, I get £10 worth of calls at the current rates and 600 texts to other phones for that month. If 1p was added to every text and I used all my texts, O2 would have to pay £6 extra to revenue. So then their only option is to increase the cost of my calls so that I increase my top ups by 60%.

That's just going to make me use my phone a lot less.

jimmmy

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

That's just going to make me use my phone a lot less.

Rubbish, I doubt very much 1 cent a text tax will make anyone use their phone a lot less. Maybe if it did that would be a good thing, as there may be less new masts around the countryside in years to come than otherwise would be the case. Bring on a tax on texts, it will all help our tax figures.

Bottle_of_Smoke

jimmmy wrote: »

Rubbish, I doubt very much 1 cent a text tax will make anyone use their phone a lot less. Maybe if it did that would be a good thing, as there may be less new masts around the countryside in years to come than otherwise would be the case. Bring on a tax on texts, it will all help our tax figures.

Aside from that line what did you think of the rest of my post? While your mini-rant would be justified if I just wrote that line it was actually linked to the other stuff I said.

MarkZ

The wholesale rate for sms is around 2 cent. There is always downward pressure on this.

Alllowing this to get to zero will mean new applications for phones. At the moment, very few applications use SMS because it is so expensive..

E.T.

gurramok wrote: »

Tax any food that is high in calories such as cookies, publicise these foods as bad for you, a 'bad food' tax!

I love it - it would make me eat a whole lot healthier!

Bottle_of_Smoke

E.T. wrote: »

I love it - it would make me eat a whole lot healthier!

I like my fully hydrogenated fats. A fairer way of doing it would be to make overweight people pay a higher rate of tax

djpbarry

100% tax on all "ring-tones" that don't sound like a phone ringing.

E.T.

10% tax on people who drive with their park lights on instead of their normal lights. Up this to 50% if it's foggy, and add another 10% again if they leave on their rear fog light when the fog clears up.

NatDonegal

How about a tax on heavily packaged goods? The green party would love that...

Apparently the government spent €100 million on anti-litter projects last year (??)... there are plenty of people on the dole now that could dedicate a few hours per week at least... money that would be welcome somewhere else... it could be a pre-condition before signing on

Tableman

Some great ideas in here. I dont know how these type of taxes would be collected, I guess the same way as the gambling tax???

- Tax on takeways is a good isea
- Tax on films @ cinema might work but probably wouldnt bring in much
- Tax on sporting events that attarct over 1000 people

Godge

dvpower wrote: »

And then everyone who is paying into a personal pension would stop overnight.

Income from personal pensions is taxed, so the tax relief only represents deferred tax.

Wrong, then nobody would do it

P. Breathnach

NatDonegal wrote: »

How about a tax on heavily packaged goods? The green party would love that...

I'd approve of that one, too, even though I am not a member of the Green Party. Hit polystyrene particularly hard, as there isn't a good recycling path for it. Similarly for mixed-material packaging, things like plastic glued to cardboard. The revenue might not amount to much, but it would help a bit. More important, it might make another small but useful contribution to preserving the environment.

Godge

This is more like an After hours thread....


serious suggestions:

The 2c a text tax is a good idea as most teenagers would say "Huh" and keep texting.

Abolish the employees PRSI ceiling. Only those earning over €300,000 have reached it this year. The rest of the country won't notice if their take-home salary doesn't increase later in the year as usual.

Postpone the Christmas social welfare bonus (2% off the social welfare bill) As nobody else in the country will get a bonus this year, we can all whinge to each other.


not-so-serious suggestions

Tax on unproductive threads on boards.ie

Tax on vasectomies and other operations nobody talks about - who is going to admit to or complain about paying that tax

Tax on botox and face-lifts - No I haven't had it done so I didn't pay that tax

Tax on luxury electronic items - sure that tax was nothing, can't i afford it.

Tax on high heels - I just had to have that pair of shoes, didn't cost that much

segaBOY

hobochris wrote: »

A tax on unhealthy foods such as crisp's,chips, chocolate would be a good idea in my opinion as it would encourage people to eat healthier.

A tax on anything enjoyable including relaxing on the couch, that would do the trick....:P

nhughes100

The Insider wrote: »

If you were in the private sector and you wanted to do whatever you wanted with the 400 euro you would be taxed on it first, we will say on the higher rate (I would guess if you are paying that much into your public pension you would be on the higher rate) so that leaves you with the guts of 250 euro give or take.

So you are telling me you would give up your public pension for an extra €250 a month? Bear in mind you would have no pension apart from the State one when you hit 65.

You're dead right I would and so would a lot of other people in the PS. The state pension will do me fine, I'll have no mortgage for a start and won't be driving 600 odd miles a week like I am at the moment. Let me do the figures, 250 a month * 12 * 40 = 120,000. Not a bad lump sum, not only that its significantly larger then my projected lump sum from my "gold plated pension" I don't want the money when I'm 65, multiply that 250 a month for every public servant and look at how much money you're taking out of the economy simply to plug holes.

Funny how most posts are about raising taxes, how about we lower them, take a short term hit and get the economy going again? There's only so much you can go to the well before it runs dry, we all know that it's better to have more people working and paying less tax individually but more collectively. How about lowering corperation tax to companies that commit to taking on workers over the next 3 years?

loyatemu

the govt needs €4b this year alone - thats €1000 for every man woman and child (and the kids aren't going to be contributing much) - there's no way they can raise this money without people noticing it.

TGPS

Pete Lunn (at the ESRI) suggests a tax on advertising because it's impossible to avoid and nobody likes advertising (except advertisers).

Obviously there would be a higher rate for political advertising!!!

TGPS

cavedave

Dominant assurance contracts for making public goods without using public funds. Original pdf paper here.