quick survey on affordability of new taxes ?

mikedublin

Just a quick survey....the government is said to be considering bringing in a property tax of 1000 a year from next year, Would you and your family in your current circumstances be able to afford that ?
I'm interested in hearing if people would be able to absorb that kind of extra bill if it came through your letterbox next January ?
And for the second question - if you couldn't absorb it , what kind of things would you look to cut back on to pay it ?

gpjordanf1

mikedublin wrote: »

Just a quick survey....the government is said to be considering bringing in a property tax of 1000 a year from next year, Would you and your family in your current circumstances be able to afford that ?
I'm interested in hearing if people would be able to absorb that kind of extra bill if it came through your letterbox next January ?
And for the second question - if you couldn't absorb it , what kind of things would you look to cut back on to pay it ?

Cant pay it to be honest, and if I could I wouldn't, I've paid enough tax on the pooperty through buying it! NO WAY will I ever pay it!

ART6

gpjordanf1 wrote: »

Cant pay it to be honest, and if I could I wouldn't, I've paid enough tax on the pooperty through buying it! NO WAY will I ever pay it!

I could pay it, but I'm damned if I will. Like you, I have paid more than enough already and I am not about to pay any more to keep FF's mates in the manner to which they have become accustomed. I suspect many will react in the same way, and this could be a tax too far that finally breaks the FF government.:mad:

halkar

1000 yoyos? Are they for real? 100-200 maybe but who ever suggesting 1000 in this gov should be hanged :mad:

mirror mirror

with a lot of families with only one person working and existing on one wage ,it would stretch things even more.what about families relying on social welfare ,how would it work out with them.what about people renting houses ,land -lords will increase rents to meet this new tax would'nt they? rent allowance increase ?

Mr.Micro

Well if they do introduce a property tax then they will probably make it a criminal offence not to pay it and will pursue people through the courts with escalating costs just like the UK..... so the choice of paying it or not will be renundant.

silverharp

yes I can afford it, but what I am doing is trying to cut down on expenditure, we are just about to cancel our Eircom line for example, and I reckon we will have spent about 3K less this year on other things we ave cut out. So from my point of view any increase in taxes will make me cut back more. If alot of people do something similar then it will mean more jobs lost in the economy

BroomBurner

I thought their plan was to bring in a tax on second+ homes?

SeaFields

I also though it was on second homes???


I heard on Joe Duffy (i only had it on for a second i swear ) a fella with a thick dublin accent (not directed at you op ) saying how he had 10, yes TEN houses, so could never afford the property tax. Memories of padraig flynn on the late late years ago come flooding back...

The property investors have a large part to play in getting us into this mess - constantly driving the prices up. I suppose if gov presses on with this then it will just be loaded onto the rent of tenants and the situation continues its catch 22 with an extra burden on those who cant afford houses and have to rent.

call d

The P Flynn interview on the late late is a perfect example of the whole FF attitude towards the taxpayers, a case of "I'm alright Jack f*** you.

jimmmy

SeaFields wrote: »

I heard on Joe Duffy (i only had it on for a second i swear ) a fella with a thick dublin accent (not directed at you op ) saying how he had 10, yes TEN houses, so could never afford the property tax.

He probably is in huge negative equity on them. People with ten houses seldom own them all.....the bank does. Attempting to srew more tax out of those unfortunate enough to owe the banks for 10 houses will only worsen the whole economic mess.

SeaFields

jimmmy wrote: »

He probably is in huge negative equity on them. People with ten houses seldom own them all.....the bank does. Attempting to srew more tax out of those unfortunate enough to owe the banks for 10 houses will only worsen the whole economic mess.

Nobody marched that man into a bank and made him buy ten houses. He did it on the whole get-rich-quick mentality that fueled the property bubble.

Sorry Jimmmy I just could never feel sorry for anybody that, on paper at least, owns ten houses.

jimmmy

SeaFields wrote: »

Nobody marched that man into a bank and made him buy ten houses. He did it on the whole get-rich-quick mentality that fueled the property bubble.

Sorry Jimmmy I just could never feel sorry for anybody that, on paper at least, owns ten houses.

The chances are he does'nt own them, the banks ( effectively you and me ) own them. Emotion does not come in to it ; the reality is that attempting to srew more tax out of those unfortunate enough to owe the banks for 10 houses will only worsen the whole economic mess.

the_dark_side

call d wrote: »

The P Flynn interview on the late late is a perfect example of the whole FF attitude towards the taxpayers, a case of "I'm alright Jack f*** you.

they should be put down like a rabid mutt

SeaFields

Again I wouldn't call somebody like that 'unfortunate'. Stupid is a much more apt term.

And because the blinkers were on and short term profits were the name of the game, yes you are right, the tax payer, in lieu of the bank, now probably owns those houses and, unfortunately for us, at a lot less than what was paid for them in a speculative market.

ChocolateSauce

It sounds relatively modest to me. In California property tax is 1% of the value of the home per year, so anyone owning a home worth more than around $135,000 would be paying more than 1000 euro. Although I wouldn't be happy if FF brought it in, I think it would be acceptable for another government to bring it in as a temp measure to get us out of the crisis.

Then again, I'm not a home owner so I wouldn't value my opinion on this matter as much as a person with something to lose.

ixoy

I've read that a tax on second-homes only wouldn't be worth the effort involved, so it'd be pushed to all houses. They'd also have to use a blanket amount as trying to evaluate house cost would be too cumbersome and too costly.

I don't own a house but I imagine it would feed back into rents, although I'd do my best to leave an apartment where they pushed their costs onto me. The 1k being touted is a big deal to my mind - if the average industrial wage is 42k (as reported last week), then it's effectively a 2.5% increase in the income levy. That's harsh. Even if there's two income earners in the house (a situation that will slowly be less and less likely) it's still a further 1.25% increase in the levy before any other new taxes are taken into account (such as the touted carbon tax). All that's before further wage reductions - the figures reported by the CSO were for 2008 I believe and many people have had wage cuts since then.

Spudmonkey

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

It sounds relatively modest to me. In California property tax is 1% of the value of the home per year, so anyone owning a home worth more than around $135,000 would be paying more than 1000 euro. Although I wouldn't be happy if FF brought it in, I think it would be acceptable for another government to bring it in as a temp measure to get us out of the crisis.

Then again, I'm not a home owner so I wouldn't value my opinion on this matter as much as a person with something to lose.

California are hardly the crowd to be copying!
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/03/business/interest-rate-payoff-on-california-iou-s.html
Reminds me of dumb and dumber

Yeah we'd probably be able to pay the tax but we'd prefer not to, because we are paying for enough mistakes as it is. If it was 200 or so and on second homes it might be better.

Its probably not going to raise much but just make those who were a little greedy suffer a bit more

esharknz

Yes we'd be able to afford to pay it, but I'll be looking again to see what can be cut back on to counteract this (saved around €220 per month in household expenditure after the April budget). I really do think it's another big slap in the face for many people though.

gerry28

I don't think i could pay it easily.

I don't see how they would get away with charging €1000 per year property tax for each home - The millionaire down the road would pay €1000 and the poor sap struggling to keep a roof over his head on the min wage or thereabouts paying €1000.

I couldn't imagine even this fianna fail outfit being that inconsiderate.

Scofflaw

jimmmy wrote:

Exactly, thank you. The point is that the selection of leading business people in the country thought that cuts ( tax and public service expenditure ) was the way to go, not tax increases. Other measures were mentioned as well ( eg how to raise p.s. productivity by 20% minimum ) but nobody suggested new taxes or raising taxes....in fact examples were produced as to how many other countries were reducing taxes in order to fight the recession.

The thread title " affordability of new taxes " is therefore a bit offputting.

I fear you have taken me up wrong. You were simply exercising your hobby-horse, but the post itself was tangentially related to the thread topic, and was, to my mind, an acceptable comment on the context of the question.

So far, so good. However, you are trying to pull this thread off-topic and onto your hobby-horse, which I was warning posters against allowing you to do by responding. Since posters have responded, and you have continued to try and pull the thread off-topic, I now have little choice but to clean up the thread. As you're a serial offender on this kind of thing, you can have a week's ban as part of the tidying.

In general, though, people, don't respond to off-topic posts by people with known hobby-horses.*

moderately,
Scofflaw

*A pithier version of this advice is also available.

shoegirl

mikedublin wrote: »

Just a quick survey....the government is said to be considering bringing in a property tax of 1000 a year from next year, Would you and your family in your current circumstances be able to afford that ?
I'm interested in hearing if people would be able to absorb that kind of extra bill if it came through your letterbox next January ?
And for the second question - if you couldn't absorb it , what kind of things would you look to cut back on to pay it ?

I rent because I can't afford a property right now in a place that wouldn't hike my commuting expenses up to an unaffordable level. This doesn't impact me now but would make purchasing even more unaffordable.

LoLth

I thought the proposed property tax was on all properties beyond the primary dwelling... has this been changed?

Senna

ixoy wrote: »

They'd also have to use a blanket amount as trying to evaluate house cost would be too cumbersome and too costly.

Cant see a blanket fee regardless of the type of property, unless it a small amount like 100-200€. Its much more like that it will go on location and sq ft.
i.e. (pure example) someone in city pays €2 per sq ft, outer urban pays €1.50 and rural pays €1.
They then make it self assessment and impose harsh penalties for failure to pay the correct amount.

eamonnm79

It will be like water charges. People just will not pay.
Water charges a fine example of civil dissobedience. It was a pity not enough people had the gumption to stop the bin charges.

P. Breathnach

Sometimes the old ways are the best.

In the past, every property had a Poor Law Valuation (later known as Rateable Valuation). Our home, constructed in the 1970s, has one. Originally it reflected the annual rental value of the property, but valuations were never revised to take account of inflation. Older valuations are probably still on file somewhere, and could probably be indexed for inflation as a simple exercise in arithmetic. Newer properties could be valued by a suitable formula.

Then Income Tax, Schedule A could be re-introduced. I suppose most of you never heard of that. It means treating the annual value of your home as income, and subjecting it to income tax. Obviously, the incidence of the tax would be progressive.

Tax rates and allowances might be adjusted so as not to make the overall burden excessive.

P. Breathnach

eamonnm79 wrote: »

It will be like water charges. People just will not pay.
Water charges a fine example of civil dissobedience. It was a pity not enough people had the gumption to stop the bin charges.

Bollocks.

Water costs money to supply, and waste water is very expensive to take away. Why should I, through my taxes, pay for your water services when I pay for my own directly (well and pump) and also meet the costs of waste water and sewage disposal (septic tank)?

Waste disposal costs money. Why should I pay a local authority to lift your bins when no local authority has ever provided a domestic waste disposal service where I live, and I have always paid contractors for a service?

Why should the taxpayer shoulder the burden for services that are not provided to all, and there is no social basis for providing the service to some, but not to others?