Dole

sunnyside

dreamlogic wrote: »

I think you'll find that €50 is a conservative estimate actually if you factor in that many people also opt to colour their hair(especially people who have lost their natural colour). I don't opt for this myself so I don't know what this costs typically. But many people do, and why would you want to deprive them of this? Do you want it to get to the stage where people stop caring about their appearance?
Should people not be entitled to look presentable? Would you not want them to look presentable in the event of a job interview?

Cutting dole payments does not make any sense if there is no work out there for people to do! When this situation changes, and work becomes available, then cutting dole payments makes sense. Until then, cutting the payments does not make sense.
.

The hair issue: I'm female and I spend a lot on my hair and appearance in general but honestly if someone is unemployed they should have to make do with a box of home colour from Boots and lots of small salons are offering dry cuts for around €20. If someone considers the salon colour essential to them they should be able to fit it into the budget. Maybe that person doesn't buy petrol or cigarettes so they can pay the hairdresser instead.

I kind of like Enda Kenny's plan to put unemployed people building schools and doing roadworks and other infrastructure improvements. Won't fix the economy but makes more sense to spend the money on that than on the social wefare budget which is basically "dead money".

kadman

MikeC101 wrote: »

Of course there is, in the form of rent allowance - maximum rate is €130 per week for Dublin and Wicklow for a single person living alone. It's lower for elsewhere in the country.

If you're including single parents with one child, a maximum rate of €1000 per month applies to Dublin.

Where are you getting the idea that there is no-one receiving this amount? There is, and I've dealt with them in my previous job.

Rent relief rates

The allowance is there, but its not an automatic entitlement according to this, you would have to satisfy a deciding officer that you fulfil certain criteria.

Are you eligible for Rent Supplement?

You may be eligible for Rent Supplement if the accommodation is suitable for your needs, the rent is below the maximum rent level set for your county and you are:

Assessed by a Housing Authority as having a housing need or
Regarded by a Housing Authority as being homeless or
A tenant of accommodation provided under one of the Social Housing Schemes or
Aged over 65 years or
On certain disability payments. That is, Disability Allowance, Blind Pension, Invalidity Pension and the equivalent payments from other EU countries or countries that Ireland has a bilateral social security agreement
and

Pass a habitual residence test
Pass a means test
Currently, if you do not fit into one of the categories above you will not be eligible for Rent Supplement unless you are already renting accommodation and have experienced a substantial change in circumstances beyond your control leading to you being unable to afford the rent. You must have been able to afford the rent from your own resources when you started to rent and you should have had a reasonable expectation that you would continue to be able to afford the rent into the future.

However, as soon as relevant legislative provision allows, if you do not fit into one of the categories listed above, you will be required to have been an existing tenant for 6 months or have been placed on a local authority housing list following a full housing assessment. This change is expected to come into effect sometime in May.

kadman

MikeC101

kadman wrote: »

The allowance is there, but its not an automatic entitlement according to this, you would have to satisfy a deciding officer that you fulfil certain criteria.

kadman

Oh, absolutely, yes, it's by no means automatic.

I was just responding to dreamlogics assertion that there is no-one receiving this money and claiming the poster who said there was was making up facts as they went along.

dreamlogic

MikeC101 wrote: »

Where are you getting the idea that there is no-one receiving this amount? There is, and I've dealt with them in my previous job.

Which job was this you had?

Rent relief rates

The amounts listed here are the maximum levels of rent that make a person eligible to apply for the supplement.
What is paid out is less than this. In the case of a person applying at the maximum level - €130 per week - they would receive €106 towards their rent. They pay the remainder of the cost of the rent out of their dole payment.

EDIT: Just taking a closer look at that source, I could see how the information could easily be misinterpreted.

kadman

sunnyside wrote: »

....

I kind of like Enda Kenny's plan to put unemployed people building schools and doing roadworks and other infrastructure improvements. Won't fix the economy but makes more sense to spend the money on that than on the social wefare budget which is basically "dead money".

Its already in operation. Its called a FAS scheme. Many councils, and local development committees around the country use them. Its tantamount to slave labour. I am open to correction on this, but I think the increase in benefit is about 25E for a single person, for 19.5 hours work.

The original format of the Fas scheme was initiated by Manpower about 25 years ago. Manpower schemes were for the benefit of companies starting out to have workers on low pay, in order to give them an opportunity to build up the business without large wage bills. When the business got going, the manpower operative was offered the going wage within the company. It never happened in my experience. A new crop of manpower operatives was farmed in every year, and the manpower wage continued.

Over the years this transformed into the fas scheme. Same idea different name. I know companies that are still using Fas/ Manpower workers for the
last 20 years, as asource of low paid workers. And they still have the same co operative of people running it, and continue to make money for it.

In its present form , it facilitates slave labour. And for the record, I,ve been on both, and have seen the abuses of the schemes first hand, but I,m not going to go into them here.

kadman

MikeC101

dreamlogic wrote: »

Which job was this you had?

Lettings agent - dealt a lot with rent supplement tenants.

dreamlogic wrote: »

The amounts listed here are the maximum levels of rent that make a person eligible to apply for the supplement.
What is paid out is less than this. In the case of a person applying at the maximum level - €130 per week - they would receive €106 towards their rent. They pay the remainder of the cost of the rent out of their dole payment.

Sure, and the person receiving €1,000 per month (single parent with one child) has a maximum allowance of €230 per week, and though they won't receive that full amount, will be getting in excess of the €130 you claimed no-one would receive.

I'm not disagreeing that making out there are loads of people receiving an extra €130 is misleading, the amounts vary hugely depending on personal circumstances and the area lived in, but I do take issue with your claim that no-one receives these amounts, particularly in light of that fact that you accused the poster who said they did of making up things as they went along.

dreamlogic

astrofool wrote: »

The problem is that the rich are the one part of society that can readily move country, increasing taxes on them often reduces the amount of tax that they pay.

If a law is passed saying that the rich have to pay a property/capital tax of X amount, and they don't like it, emergency legislation can be passed to deal with people who don't want to co-operate with the law of the land. Similar to how the criminal assets bureau that was set up to deal with people like this. Afterwards who cares if they then leave the country? As I said earlier, they should not be welcome here if they do not want to pay their fair share. The rest of us don't get to pick and choose what we want to pay or don't want to pay.

France, for example, has a punitive tax on high earners with high assets, and has seen their tax received from this group fall steadily as a result

If that's the case then we can lower the tax back to current levels for them when the country gets back on its feet. For the time being there are no jobs anyway. And we need tax revenue.

With 5% contributing 40% to our income tax, if that 5% move, we are f*cked, the burden has to be picked up by everyone equally, and that means cutting benefits as well as increasing taxes.

We are not at all f*cked if they move. What are you basing this opinion on? Are you saying we need the expertise of celebreties in the country? As for the property speculators, bankers, politicians and the other super-rich businessmen, they are the ones who got us into this mess. They need to pay their way and take responsibility for their actions, simple as.

Of course, the last person who seized the assets of the rich people was in Zimbabwe, and we all know how well that has turned out.

Ireland is not Zimbabwe. At least compare like with like if you have a point to make.
If someone is a criminal, their assets can be seized. Like I said, it happened with CAB.

kadman

astrofool wrote: »

The problem is that the rich are the one part of society that can readily move country, increasing taxes on them often reduces the amount of tax that they pay. France, for example, has a punitive tax on high earners with high assets, and has seen their tax received from this group fall steadily as a result (it's a populist tax, nothing more). Many businessmen who work in france commute in from brussels daily.

With 5% contributing 40% to our income tax, if that 5% move, we are f*cked, the burden has to be picked up by everyone equally, and that means cutting benefits as well as increasing taxes.

Of course, the last person who seized the assets of the rich people was in Zimbabwe, and we all know how well that has turned out.

Can anyone tell me, is the bank bailout being included in our day to day figures, or is it being included on the balance sheets as a loan?

The poor old rich have been getting jam on the 2 sides of their bread, I feel for them. Situation in 2004 was like this,

Subsidising the cowboy economy
April 18th, 2004 , Topics: Uncategorized

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The other week I was out for lunch with two friends - let’s call them Mr
Radioman and the Builder. All three of us were in good form as there were things
to talk about, issues to debate and we were looking forward to Easter
weekend.


Both men are from the Midlands and as a result, much of the talk revolved
around developments beyond the Pale.

Mr Radioman spoke enthusiastically
about his hopes for a new radio licence he had just won.The Builder told us
about a new development of holiday homes that he was about to launch. Both
sensed that 2004 was already shaping up to be a good year.

As we talked,
it struck me that both men were involved in
surprisingly similar businesses.What do holiday homes and local radios have in
common? Despite all the talk about competition, both are operating in the
protected sector of the Irish economy. Both benefit hugely from inexplicable
government intervention and both these subsidised businesses make it harder for
real businesses to survive and prosper in the free market.

Quite simply,
both my lunch mates are personally in receipt of extraordinary government
largesse.

The Builder is profiting enormously from a tax break given to final buyers of
holiday homes all around the country. On his calculations, his golf-side
apartments will cost �300,000, but
after a ten-year tax break,the buyer will only actually forkout half of this after. So instead of the apartment costing the buyer �300,000, it will cost him, net of tax, �150,000.The state subsidises the other �150,000 in taxes foregone.

Why does the state subsidise the
Builder to this extent? Why does the building industry need this helping hand?
Is it suffering under excessively high interest rates that are preventing
expansion in the sector? Is there enormous uninsurable risk involved in building apartments?

On the
contrary,the building sector has never been more productive. So why the subsidy?
Does it make economic sense in 2004?

Ten years ago,when large swathes of
our cities and rural towns were actually falling down, the urban renewal schemes worked brilliantly, and
were probably the most successful public/private partnership ever witnessed.


But today the opposite is true.We are building too many houses, and
recent evidence indicates that supply is far outstripping demand. But the
tax breaks incentivise more, not less,
building. Therefore, the more the market is distorted the more supply will
outstrip demand and the more stretched valuations will be. If we are worried
about house prices, is this not counterintuitive?

Well it is
counterintuitive if the aim of government policy is to clarify for investors the
risk in the second home market.

But what if the opposite is the aim?
What if the aim is to keep investors in the dark about the true risk, yield and
valuations in the property market?

If this were the objective, there
would not be a better way of hoodwinking the punters - because valuations on
Irish holiday homes only make sense in the context of the tax break.Therefore, the state is
actively pulling the wool over investors’eyes bygiving them a Panglossian, tax-distorted notion of the real
value of their assets. Meanwhile, the builder is laughing all the way to bank.

Full article,

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2004/04/18/subsidising-the-cowboy-economy

kadman

dreamlogic

but I do take issue with your claim that no-one receives these amounts, particularly in light of that fact that you accused the poster who said they did of making up things as they went along.

No one person receives this amount. This is a fact and this was why I accused that poster of being inaccurate. Take issue all you want, but you are wrong, sorry.

MikeC101 wrote: »

Sure, and the person receiving €1,000 per month (single parent with one child) has a maximum allowance of €230 per week, and though they won't receive that full amount, will be getting in excess of the €130 you claimed no-one would receive.

single parent + 1 child = 2 people

astrofool

dreamlogic wrote: »

If a law is passed saying that the rich have to pay a property/capital tax of X amount, and they don't like it, emergency legislation can be passed to deal with people who don't want to co-operate with the law of the land. Similar to how the criminal assets bureau that was set up to deal with people like this. Afterwards who cares if they then leave the country? As I said earlier, they should not be welcome here if they do not want to pay their fair share. The rest of us don't get to pick and choose what we want to pay or don't want to pay.

If that's the case then we can lower the tax back to current levels for them when the country gets back on its feet. For the time being there are no jobs anyway. And we need tax revenue.

We are not at all f*cked if they move. What are you basing this opinion on? Are you saying we need the expertise of celebreties in the country? As for the property speculators, bankers, politicians and the other super-rich businessmen, they are the ones who got us into this mess. They need to pay their way and take responsibility for their actions, simple as.
Ireland is not Zimbabwe. At least compare like with like if you have a point to make.
If someone is a criminal, their assets can be seized. Like I said, it happened with CAB.

The problem with the 5% moving is that they leave a 40% hole in our income tax receipts. These are not criminals, you can't seize their assets, we couldn't do it as a member of the EU (we would certainly lose the case once it went to the european courts), it would only happen if we had a Chavez type figure take over the country and remove us from the international community, but I'd say that most people would have removed all their assets from the country before that became a possibility.

Anyway, your points are completely ridiculous and offer nothing in a thread about the dole. We need to cut our costs.

MikeC101

dreamlogic wrote: »

No one person receives this amount. This is a fact and this was why I accused that poster of being inaccurate. Take issue all you want, but you are wrong, sorry.

single parent + 1 child = 2 people

So you've changed your use of no-one to no one ? They don't mean the same thing, but hey, if you're willing to descend to use of such petty semantics then I have no interest in continuing discussion with you.

dreamlogic

MikeC101 wrote: »

So you've changed your use of no-one to no one ? They don't mean the same thing, but hey, if you're willing to descend to use of such petty semantics then I have no interest in continuing discussion with you.

Mike, "no-one" and "no one" are both equally acceptable usages to describe "no one person".
If you don't consider a child to be a person, sorry but that's your problem.

MikeC101

dreamlogic wrote: »

Mike, "no-one" and "no one" are both equally acceptable usages to describe "no one person".
If you don't consider a child to be a person, sorry but that's your problem.

And "no-one" can't also mean the exact same thing as "nobody" ?

You never mentioned you were referring exclusively to single people with no children, and as a result I stated that single parents can get in excess of 130 a week rent allowance.

Only then did you try to retrofit what you'd said.

If you lack the ability use proper English, sorry but thats your problem.

astrofool

dreamlogic wrote: »

Mike, "no-one" and "no one" are both equally acceptable usages to describe "no one person".
If you don't consider a child to be a person, sorry but that's your problem.

I believe the dictionary would like to argue with you about this:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/no%20one

no one 
–noun no person; not anyone; nobody: No one is home.

kadman

MikeC101 wrote: »

So you've changed your use of no-one to no one ? They don't mean the same thing, but hey, if you're willing to descend to use of such petty semantics then I have no interest in continuing discussion with you.

astrofool wrote: »

I believe the dictionary would like to argue with you about this:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/no%20one

This is off topic, lets get back to the dole.

This is how the less well off in society are after the recent cuts,

Cumulative Impact on Private Sector Take-home Income
The take-home income of people in the private sector has been affected by the taxation and social welfare changes in both the original 2009 budget and in this supplementary Budget.

Chart 10.2 (page 10) sets out this cumulative impact of both budgets on private sector take-home income.
No account has been taken of possible pay increases under the national agreements as many employess will not benefit from them.

An assessment of the cumulative impact of the October and April
Budget offers a more rounded insight into the distributive impacts

Single people who are long-term unemployed are €6.50 a week (€339 a year ) better off in 2009. Those on €25,000 a year will see a reduction of €9.58 a week (€500 a year) in their take home pay while those on €50,000 will be €38.33 a week (€1,790 a year ) worse off in the coming year and those on €75,000 a year will be €70.54 a week (€3,681 a year) worse off in the coming year.

Couples who are long-term unemployed are €10.80 a week (€564 a year) better off in 2009. Couples with one income on €25,000 a year will be €9.58 a week (€500 a year) worse off while those on €50,000 will be €34.30 a week (€1,790 a year) worse off in the coming year.

Couples with two incomes on €25,000 a year will be €9.58 a week (€500 a year) worse off while those on €50,000 will be €38.33 a week (€2,000 a year) worse off in the coming year

I dont see anywhere in that list that says the rich are worse off. The facts are that the less well off in society are being forced to pay. they dont have the benefits of tax breaks, as the rich do. Their cuts happen at source before they get any money ie., paye,pensions,levies,welfare payments. And then the presumption is that , we are all suffering proportionately.

The best thing that has come out of this thread so far, is the realisation that those that have little care more for those that have less. And that those that have more, are in fear of losing more to support those that have less.

In the future we are going to have to rely more on helping each other, rather than helping ourselves, in essence we will realise that helping each other is the important thing. Hopefully helping each other, will give us the chance to remove the third party from making profit from our interaction with each other.
Offering help, and receiving help, as outlined in your link, dreamlogic is more important than trying to convince some here that there is a huge divide between those that have , and those that have not. So I am going over there to contribute to that thread, and I am going to leave you folks to fight over keeping your marbles for your selves.

kadman

dreamlogic

MikeC101 wrote:

You never mentioned you were referring exclusively to single people with no children, and as a result I stated that single parents can get in excess of 130 a week rent allowance.

I was referring to what was posted by Infront below.

Infront wrote:

When people quote a figure of €204 per week for JA they should remember o factor in the rent assistance provided by the Department of Social Welfare for such individuals - upto an extra €130 for a single person such as Jonny in Dublin, for example. That amounts to €330 for Jonny for the week.

He was the one who didn't mention whether or not "Jonny" was a single parent living with a child. The onus was not on me to ask if he was living with a child!
It's very simple. He is incorrect to say that a single person living alone is entitled to receive €130, and it is very misleading to anyone who would be reading the thread.
I really don't see why you have such a problem accepting this. Or would you rather that false information is let go by uncorrected?
To me, a single person is a person on their own. To me, a single person with a child = 2 people living together. I am sorry if you hold a different view as to whether a child = a real person. But you are dragging the discussion off topic at this stage.

astrofool

kadman wrote: »

I dont see anywhere in that list that says the rich are worse off. The facts are that the less well off in society are being forced to pay. they dont have the benefits of tax breaks, as the rich do. Their cuts happen at source before they get any money ie., paye,pensions,levies,welfare payments. And then the presumption is that , we are all suffering proportionately.

What tax breaks are you talking about? Those earning a high wage got an extra 2% on the income levy, as well as lowering the cut off rate at which it applies, and the PRSI ceiling has been raised, bringing them further into the tax net, they are of course going to be worse off than before the budget.

Is that an article that you quoted? With a title "This is how the less well off in society are after the recent cuts,".

MikeC101

dreamlogic wrote: »

I was referring to what was posted by Infront below.


He was the one who didn't mention whether or not "Jonny" was a single parent living with a child. The onus was not on me to ask if he was living with a child!
It's very simple. He is incorrect to say that a single person living alone is entitled to receive €130, and it is very misleading to anyone who would be reading the thread.
I really don't see why you have such a problem accepting this. Or would you rather that false information is let go by uncorrected?
To me, a single person is a person on their own. To me, a single person with a child = 2 people living together. I am sorry if you hold a different view as to whether a child = a real person. But you are dragging the discussion off topic at this stage.

Look, I don't want to continue in a manner that pushes this thread off-topic, and I apologise if I am doing so with this post, but could you kindly cut out the crap of accusing me of not considering a child to be a real person? That's twice you've done it, I ignored it the first time, but it's a little much when you do it a second time.

The discussion involved a person in the context of receiving benefits from the state, I pointed out a single parent could receive benefits over the amount of €130 a week in rent allowance. Single, in the context of state benefits, refers to unmarried / not cohabiting with a partner. Nothing to do with having children or not. It doesn't matter if your personal interpretation of "single" is different, in the context we're debating, that's what it means.

You used the "no-one" in a mistaken manner, based on your belief that it referred exclusively to "no one person". I responded in the belief you were using "no-one" in the accepted meaning of the word.

Again, apologies for the off topic nature of this post, but I didn't want to let the accusations of "not considering a child to be a real person" go.

I'll let the matter drop at that.

astrofool

dreamlogic wrote: »

I am sorry if you hold a different view as to whether a child = a real person.

Why are you insinuating that some posters don't see a child as a real person? What possible confumbling of your neural pathways has been able to lead you to such a silly conclusion?

dreamlogic

astrofool wrote:

The problem with the 5% moving is that they leave a 40% hole in our income tax receipts.

I didn't say the top 5%. The percentage I specified in my earlier post was the top 1%, who have € millions there waiting to be taxed; meanwhile the rest of the country is in a crisis.

you can't seize their assets, we couldn't do it as a member of the EU (we would certainly lose the case once it went to the european courts),

So Europe gets to decide how we make our tax laws now? I wasn't aware of this. Would you mind posting a link to some documentation outlining how this is covered in European law?

it would only happen if we had a Chavez type figure take over the country

Well obviously you think Bertie Ahern "type figures" represent ideal leadership? But comparing our country to Zimbabwe or Venezuela doesn't really contribute anything to a discussion about how we're going to get out of this mess. I think we need to be more practical here.

and remove us from the international community,

The same international community that is also in a global recession at this time? And how would taxing our rich affect them anyway?

but I'd say that most people would have removed all their assets from the country before that became a possibility.

Not if it is dealt with as with the CAB in the 90s. That worked quite well; there is no reason why it could not be done again to deal with people who don't want to co-operate with the law.

Anyway, your points are completely ridiculous and offer nothing in a thread about the dole. We need to cut our costs.

Ridiculous in your opinion maybe. It seems to me though that you suffer from a certain lack of imagination when it comes to problem-solving. You just want to do it the way it's been done for the past few generations, regardless of whether we are in boom or recession - tax the poor heavily. let the rich off lightly. That is all you seem to have to offer to the thread. It's all been said and done before astrofool. People suffered through the same policies during the slump of the 80s. It's nothing compared to what's facing us now though. Because of the increased wealth gap between rich and poor which I referred to a few posts ago.

MikeC101

kadman wrote: »

This is off topic, lets get back to the dole.




I dont see anywhere in that list that says the rich are worse off. The facts are that the less well off in society are being forced to pay. they dont have the benefits of tax breaks, as the rich do. Their cuts happen at source before they get any money ie., paye,pensions,levies,welfare payments. And then the presumption is that , we are all suffering proportionately.

The best thing that has come out of this thread so far, is the realisation that those that have little care more for those that have less. And that those that have more, are in fear of losing more to support those that have less.

In the future we are going to have to rely more on helping each other, rather than helping ourselves, in essence we will realise that helping each other is the important thing. Hopefully helping each other, will give us the chance to remove the third party from making profit from our interaction with each other.
Offering help, and receiving help, as outlined in your link, dreamlogic is more important than trying to convince some here that there is a huge divide between those that have , and those that have not. So I am going over there to contribute to that thread, and I am going to leave you folks to fight over keeping your marbles for your selves.

kadman

I'm not too sure of how the figures in the article were arrived at, but it seems to be limited to a small amount of different incomes.

The only people referred to as better off are long term unemployed, according to that article? Is that correct?

It doesn't mention the effect on anyone earning over €75,000 a year, but other than long term unemployed it claims everyone is worse off?

astrofool

dreamlogic wrote: »

I didn't say the top 5%. The percentage I specified in my earlier post was the top 1%, who have € millions there waiting to be taxed; meanwhile the rest of the country is in a crisis.

So Europe gets to decide how we make our tax laws now? I wasn't aware of this. Would you mind posting a link to some documentation outlining how this is covered in European law?

Well obviously you think Bertie Ahern "type figures" represent ideal leadership? But comparing our country to Zimbabwe or Venezuela doesn't really contribute anything to a discussion about how we're going to get out of this mess. I think we need to be more practical here.

The same international community that is also in a global recession at this time? And how would taxing our rich affect them anyway?

Not if it is dealt with as with the CAB in the 90s. That worked quite well; there is no reason why it could not be done again to deal with people who don't want to co-operate with the law.

You can't tax people on what they have in their bank accounts, only what they earn. It's taken over 10 years for the CAB to get assets from John Gilligan, a drug dealing murderer. You expect to be able to do the same with people who have broken no law at all, and are not in jail, behind bars? ridiculous.

We are signed up to general agreements with Europe on tax, e.g. VAT can only go between 15 and 25%, corporation tax has a floor, and we treat citizens according to european guidelines (e.g. we can't take something off someone, without legislature to back it up according to EU guidelines), there's plenty of documentation on this, have a look through http://europa.eu/ when you get a chance. Again, ridiculous.

Yes, I think a Bertie Ahern type figure is better than a Mugable, Chavez, Castro, Stalin, Putin, Kim type figure, yes I do. Bertie Ahern was not a great leader, but the other ones have destroyed, or are destroying their country daily. Ridiculous.

The same international community that brought us up from being a third world country to a developed nation, that built most of our roads for us, that keeps our farmers farming, that enshrines human rights in our constitution. Or would you prefer us to be more like North Korea, Iran, Albania, closed off countries, with abject poverty. Ridiculous.

Having ridiculous "new" ideas (and they aren't new, they've been tried and failed many times around the world already) doesn't make it any less completely, and abso-positively ridiculous to be supporting a position based on such utterly ridiculous ideas.

InFront

dreamlogic wrote: »

For however long that might be. 6 months, 1 year, 2 years? people have no idea how long they are going to be left waiting...

I firmly believe that unless we cut our costs, we will all be left waiting for longer for this recession to turn around. We can afford to cut the dole - all of the figures each of us have produced here ultimately leaves leftover money after essential items (and some non essential items) have been paid for. Scrap that left over money and give it back to the exchequer.

I already posted a thread from this site about some guy going and buying Italian leather shoes with his dole money. Here is a related thread from last night which shows anomalies in the social elfare system that ned to be addressed.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055571719

Why should grown adults be forced by economic necessity to move in with complete strangers?

Are you kidding? Most employees can't afford to live alone and pay rent just frm one income, why should people on social welfare have such an entitlement?? There is an economic emergency in this country and you're asking questions like that?

Yeah right. I've done that before and I came out with an uneven haircut. Never again!

I think you'll find that €50 is a conservative estimate actually if you factor in that many people also opt to colour their hair(especially people who have lost their natural colour).

why would you want to deprive them of this?

I'm not going to try prove it's too much to expect the government to pay for fifty euro haircuts and salon colouring. You're doing your case no favours with these arguments above.

I live in the same area myself. I am glad that you've just moved into a new place and all and that you are happy with it. You are forgetting though that many landlords of such properties will turn people away

In the current rental market you think landlords are turning people away? Our landlord gave us a discount on the place just because we said we'd think about it - I've been in cases in the past where people were bringing chequebooks and cash to viewings. Landlords are very slow to turn people away these days.

I agree with the last part - It isn't enough! But why are you are advocating a 7% cut in dole, but only a "1 to 2% rise in tax on the current higher income band"?!

It's simple. People on the dole would be asked to pay 6% of their income -say that's €12.24 per week cut, maximum.
Now take a manager working long hours, she is on €95000 per year. She is paying an enormous €36,720 in taxes and PRSI.

Her contribution is already great, but lets say we increase it to 2% on the higher rate of tax. Now she is paying almost an extra €1000 per year and a total income tax of €37,713 per year.

The dole collector is taking a hit of €12 per week max, and she is taking an EXTRA hit of €19 per week on top of an incredibly huge tax bill. That is more than fair.

maybe this is because you yourself are a student and haven't yet contributed enough to understand the concept of what is fair and what is not fair!

I am paying tax, and I have been since I was about sixteen.

If a law is passed saying that the rich have to pay a property/capital tax of X amount, and they don't like it, emergency legislation can be passed to deal with people who don't want to co-operate with the law of the land. Similar to how the criminal assets bureau that was set up to deal with people like this. Afterwards who cares if they then leave the country? As I said earlier, they should not be welcome here if they do not want to pay their fair share.

Someone has already said it, but with your approval of leting the banks go, and completely mad statements like this, you really would have the place become Zimbabwe.

InFront

kadman wrote: »

There are no benefits of NAMA at the present time, as the legal issues of what they propose have not been established, it may take years to do so.

It isn't going to take years, nobody would accept that. The principle of NAMA is sound and every unemployed person the country should be counting down the days for NAMA to begin its operations so that employers can put some shape and recovery into what is an incredibly elastic labour market. The sooner NAMA begins, the sooner business recovers, the sooner people get back on their feet and get their mortgages paid.

Nothing has been set up by the government to help the ordinary paye worker

NAMA!

,

or those on social welfare[/B] dealing with a mortgage debt they have

There is mortgage assistance available for SW recipients!

So the taxpayer, and social welfare recipients are taking the pain for it. Can you name any banker, government official, that is taking the same amount of pain.

What pain have social welfare recipients been asked to take? I have a medical friend in public practice who is down an extra €500 per month and she is only 3 years out of college. The higher the wage, the higher the hit you are taking. Bankers pay tax too you know, so do politicians. Everyone else is taking a hit, the dole must be cut too.


Could you just please clarify why you think a mortgage holder who took out an enormous mortgage should be bailed out, and not an employer who could save tens or hundreds of mortgages at a lower cost to the taxpayer?

dreamlogic

astrofool wrote:

You can't tax people on what they have in their bank accounts, only what they earn.

Of course you can, have you never heard of property tax for example?

It's taken over 10 years for the CAB to get assets from John Gilligan, a drug dealing murderer.

Well if a law taxing the assets of the rich was introduced, I would imagine that most people - if they are reasonable people - would co-operate with the law of the land. Those few who would not co-operate would be those who consider themselves to be above the law somehow, and as such they would deserve to be punished the same as anyone would be punished for non-cooperation with the state. I never said send them to jail like John Gilligan..
It would not have to be a lengthy process to secure the revenue that is needed. Provided the government and the banks co-operated. But they are quite used to working together so...

You expect to be able to do the same with people who have broken no law at all, and are not in jail, behind bars? ridiculous.

I've pointed out a few times already that laws could easily be introduced. What is the government there for if not to pass laws to protect its citizens?

We are signed up to general agreements with Europe on tax, e.g. VAT can only go between 15 and 25%, corporation tax has a floor,

There is no need to touch VAT. I am talking about placing a tax on assets and property for the top 1% or so at the top of society.
Since you mention it, our corporation tax is also extremely low compared to the rest of Europe. There is a good case to be made for increasing that substantially for a time at least.

and we treat citizens according to european guidelines (e.g. we can't take something off someone, without legislature to back it up according to EU guidelines),

Does this also mean that if the government proposes to cut welfare payments that there will have to be a debate about this at European level?

Yes, I think a Bertie Ahern type figure is better than a Mugable, Chavez, Castro, Stalin, Putin, Kim type figure, yes I do. Bertie Ahern was not a great leader, but the other ones have destroyed, or are destroying their country daily. Ridiculous.

Clearly you have constructed a strawman argument here; I never mentioned any of these countries nor did I mention any of these political figures etc. This discussion is simply to do with whether Ireland's unemployment payments should remain at current levels, or be cut drastically.

The same international community that brought us up from being a third world country to a developed nation, that built most of our roads for us, that keeps our farmers farming, that enshrines human rights in our constitution. Or would you prefer us to be more like North Korea, Iran, Albania, closed off countries, with abject poverty. Ridiculous.

Again you're going off on tangents here in an effort to obscure the real issue which is simply to do with Irish tax revenue and dole payments.

doesn't make it any less completely, and abso-positively ridiculous to be supporting a position based on such utterly ridiculous ideas.

You keep appending the word "ridiculous" to each comment.
What I have been saying makes all too much sense I'd say!

InFront

dreamlogic wrote: »

Since you mention it, our corporation tax is also extremely low compared to the rest of Europe. There is a good case to be made for increasing that substantially for a time at least.

You're the person who is saying that there is no point cutting the dole when the work just isn't here for people. Why on earth would you then raise corporation tax when we have some of the highest wages in Europe and companies are trying their best to hold onto their workers?
It isn't that you'd be helping employers get over the labour costs and wage burden, you'd actually be punishing employers to an even greater degree and squeezing jobs out of Ireland, subjecting more people to the dole!

The theories that Kadman and you are putting forward here are crazy, they make no economic sense and go far beyond the dreamworld realm of socialism into complete anarchy. Do you guys envisage an ideal Ireland with no business, no jobs and social welfare and free hair care for everybody?

kadman

InFront wrote: »

The theories that Kadman and you are putting forward here are crazy, they make no economic sense and go far beyond the dreamworld realm of socialism into complete anarchy. Do you guys envisage an ideal Ireland with no business, no jobs and social welfare and free hair care for everybody?

You need to wake up son. We are here, no jobs, failing business,s, and a crumbling social welfare system. You are in dreamland if you think we are getting out of this anytime soon, unscathed. Your trouble is, you think the less well off should pay the price. I happen to think the rich should. You need to take off the blinkers. I suspect your youthful years have not allowed you to treat less well off with compassion. Hopefully that will change as you get older.

kadman

dreamlogic

Infront wrote:

I already posted a thread from this site about some guy going and buying Italian leather shoes with his dole money

You are grasping at straws here I'm afraid if you have to use what is posted in AH by a couple of individuals who could easily be trolling for their own amusement. I go to AH myself sometimes for the laugh. I certainly wouldn't link to it in an attempt to corroborate where I stand in a debate on such an important issue. I thought we were supposed to be having a serious discussion here!

salon colouring. You're doing your case no favours with these arguments above.

This was said in the context of the discussion we were having earlier about day-to-day expenses which was based around your your case study - "Robert", an unemployed single male age 25. I was simply pointing out how the gender of your case study was an issue which had not been considered. If you go back and read what I said, you'll notice that I never mentioned "salon" colouring specifically. But it seems that your point is that you think the dole payment should be prohibitive in certain areas which might not be essentials for 25-yr old Robert, but which might be essentials for say, a female who is around age 40 and has been laid off from her job recently. The problem with your case is that Robert is not representative of the average person. His requirements are minimal since he is probably not long out of college and is accustomed to a happy-go-lucky student lifestyle. If things do get uncomfortable for Robert, he can opt to move back in with his parents. This is not such an option for older people though. So my argument is that an adequate safety net should be in place to protect the average person. i.e. leave payments at current levels

Now take a manager working long hours, she is on €95000 per year. She is paying an enormous €36,720 in taxes and PRSI.

I am not referring to people on middle incomes. The people I was referring to - if you go back and read the last few pages - were the top 1% rich whose incomes amount to vastly more than that salary you just quoted.

Someone has already said it, but with your approval of leting the banks go, and completely mad statements like this, you really would have the place become Zimbabwe.

That is a lazy answer. The same lazy answer that has been given before in an attempt to divert from the practical implications of what I've suggested.

The theories that Kadman and you are putting forward here are crazy,

What theories would those be? This is not a theoretical discussion and I haven't invoked any theory in this debate. I have simply proposed to introduce some simple measures which would help 99% of the population to get through the recession that we are facing into. You seem to be arguing towards protecting the top 1% of society. This doesn't make sense to me on any level of analysis.

they make no economic sense and go far beyond the dreamworld realm of socialism into complete anarchy.

Actually no, you seem to be misinterpreting. What we have already is anarchy. What I am proposing is a state crackdown on those who have made their wealth off the backs of the rest of us during the boom years. If anything, these measures would be the opposite of anarchy, InFront.

InFront

kadman wrote: »

Your trouble is, you think the less well off should pay the price. I happen to think the rich should.

It isn't that the less well off should pay the price, they need to pay part of it. A small part - beginning with the twelve euro per week you are so opposed to.
I and many others are sick to death of hearing red card holding opportunists coming up with the same empty statements about making everyone else pay. Earlier I gave an example of an hardworking employee who is paying just under €40,000 in taxes and PRSI alone - over one third of her salary wiped out before she puts anything aside for a pension or a mortgage.
This is what people like you call 'high earners'.
30% of her salary automatically goes to the state. 100% of social welfare comes from the state and you say the taxpayer is still not doing enough!

Moreover, there is one more small point that must be made and it has to do with subprime mortgages. Nobody held a gun to the heads of those taking out irresponsible mortgages, not even bank managers. The culpability of these people is not absolute, but negligent debtors should not be regarded as innocent bystanders any more than their creditors.
Even Ireland has its negligent debtors in the form of low paid workers and they must share the blame responsibly.

InFront

dreamlogic wrote: »

I thought we were supposed to be having a serious discussion here!

From what is often published in the politics section, you have to admit trolling is not always confined to AH and these are genuine real life experiences. In fact, they are far more realistic than expecting your government to pay for your hair colouring as you have suggested.

I am not referring to people on middle incomes. The people I was referring to - if you go back and read the last few pages - were the top 1% rich whose incomes amount to vastly more than that salary you just quoted.

You're talking about people with wealth comparable to say Tony O Reilly or JP McManus I take it? You really think that only taxing those people - mass employers - will fix things?

You seem to be arguing towards protecting the top 1% of society. This doesn't make sense to me on any level of analysis.

If an employer has seven hundred mortgage holders on his payrol, I don't agree in taxing him out of business, no. Do you see how that works yet?

What I am proposing is a state crackdown on those who have made their wealth off the backs of the rest of us during the boom years

Off the backs of us? You make it sound like there was never any economic success. Everyone benefitted. These people who made wealth happen "off the backs of the rest of us" employed "us" and lots of people would have been on the dole for the past ten to fifteen years without these individuals.

Where do you think jobs will come from if you keep taxing the country's businesmen and women?