Are the Green Party for real??? Carbon Tax.

View

ei.sdraob wrote: »

because if the greens were serious about climate change they would use existing technologies (read nuclear) in a pragmatic manner

not more taxes for nothing in return

these taxes wont go to green projects, they will go to bail out banks (who shouldn't be given a cent), pay the PS (who are among highest paid in world) and hand money to welfare (a 1/5th of whom are long term spongers) and lastly pay external debt interest (which is rapidly increasing to pay for above 3)

Of course, most of the tax raise will not be going to green projects - the hole in public finances is too huge for anything like that.

As for "nothing in return", that would depend on your politcal viewpoint. The state is spending money it doesn't have at the moment (Borrowing making up the balance). It is doing so on a scale that is too huge to continue with and it is awfully difficult politically to make massive cuts in practice. Most people, at the end of the day, don't regard their local hospital, school etc. as "nothing" and that is exactly what taxes pay for ultimately.

Still, I supose they could introduce higher income tax rates rather than green taxes to pay for it all, but either way it still is going to come out of your wallet.

crocro

Ireland pays carbon taxes by way of Kyoto fines for missing our emissions targets. A consumer carbon tax is just a way of getting the polluter to pay. The vehicle fuel tax will likely be in the 5-8c bracket. Fuel prices vary by this much already from month to month and from one petrol station to another. So hardly a big deal.

Carbon tax is only likely to raise 500million so the government has to find another 4.5 billion in cuts or taxes.

Diarmuid

Long Onion wrote: »

You are assuming that there is a less polluting alternative though. Let me assure you that if you live in a remote rural location there is no less polluting alternative to getting to work than a private car.

Well for a start there is a choice. The choice currently is between a a larger and a smaller engine. Compare the upcoming VW Polo TDI (89g/km) and the Ford Mondeo 2.0l petrol (189g/km) for instance. The carbon tax encourages people to buy the former and should have less than half the carbon tax of the latter

Long Onion wrote: »

I do not complain about the bad roads or the fact that I have no transport, have to pay for my water, have to provide my own sewage tank, have no broadband or street lighting - all of these things I am prepared to pay and see them as being part and parcel of living in the country. I am not, however, willing to pay a punative tax on top of this.

The fact that you have bad roads, no broadband, your own sewage tank makes no differences to the amount you are polluting.

Long Onion wrote: »

The right time to introduce it is after an alternative solution has been put in place, bar this, a carbon tax remains a lazy way of raising revenue without dealing with the issue of emissions - we will all still drive to work on the same roads, the same distance so no squirell's will be saved.

You are looking at the situation in black and white which suits your point of view. However it's not a choice between polluting and not polluting. It's a graduated scale between the two. The idea of a carbon tax is to encourage people to buy lower polluting cars and as a result encourage car companies to build more efficient cars. And it works. Compare the cars in the US vs European cars. A world of a difference solely down to the price of fuel.

Heroditas

crocro wrote: »

The vehicle fuel tax will likely be in the 5-8c bracket. Fuel prices vary by this much already from month to month and from one petrol station to another. So hardly a big deal.

An 8c rise in petrol will amount to a rise of up to €4.80 for a 60L tank of petrol. If the person fills their tank every week, that's nearly €250 a year.

If it's not a big deal, will you send me a cheque for €250 and you can pay this increase for me?

I can bear the increase if they'd simply said it was being added to excise duty. The fact that they're branding it as a "green" tax sticks in my throat. You can be sure it won't go on energy efficiency schemes.

Diarmuid

Heroditas wrote: »

An 8c rise in petrol will amount to a rise of up to €4.80 for a 60L tank of petrol. If the person fills their tank every week, that's nearly €250 a year.

Well if that means you are already spending €3556 on petrol per year. €250 is not to be sneezed at but you are already spending a crazy amount in fuel in your car.

At 9l/100km that would mean you are already racking up 100km a day. Buying a slightly less polluting car (say 7l/100km) will save you far more than the carbon tax you will be paying, about €800 saving actually.

Blazer

The only way the green party can contribute anything to Ireland is by killing themselves.
We can then use their bodies for compost heaps.......that's how much I rate the usefullness of the green party.
Roll on 2012 when the party is decimated at the polls.



On a more serious note if the gimps..sorry the greens had any bit of cop on they've eliminate motor tax and have it added to the price of petrol/diesel instead.
That way the higher the carbon footprint the more tax they pay.
Plus can you imagine how much money they've save by getting rid of the motor tax process? Between the website, the disks, the administration and the staff I reckon it would save a nice few pennnies...
but of course they haven't the balls to do this.

Heroditas

Diarmuid wrote: »

At 9l/100km that would mean you are already racking up 100km a day. Buying a slightly less polluting car (say 7l/100km) will save you far more than the carbon tax you will be paying, about €800 saving actually.

In my case I'm happy with the car I drive and can afford the €250. I also have no intention of changing my car.
However, there are many people out there who might not have that luxury and might not be able to afford to change their car.

Heroditas

Double post

Diarmuid

Heroditas wrote: »

In my case I'm happy with the car I drive and can afford the €250. I also have no intention of changing my car.
However, there are many people out there who might not have that luxury and might not be able to afford to change their car.

I realise that but there will be a percentage that will be changing their car anyway. The point is that with a disincentive to buy a car that is more polluting (ie less economical) they will be more inclined to buy a more economical/less polluting car. This will incentivise car manufactures to invest more into the development of cleaner cars and so more cleaner cars come on the market and the goal of a cleaner environment is closer.

Also I would dispute your claim that someone who is already spending over €5k (€3550 + motor tax + insurance + service + depreciation) on their car alone per year , can't afford €250 in carbon tax.

Diarmuid

Berkut wrote: »

On a more serious note if the gimps..sorry the greens had any bit of cop on they've eliminate motor tax and have it added to the price of petrol/diesel instead.

Who's the gimp here?

Heroditas

Diarmuid wrote: »

This will incentivise car manufactures to invest more into the development of cleaner cars and so more cleaner cars come on the market and the goal of a cleaner environment is closer.

Car manufacturers are producign more efficient cars anyway, even before these ridiculous taxes were touted.

The principles of the tax are appalling. Fuel will be taxed so can we take it that fuel used in trains and buses will also be hit by it? That means increased fares.
So we drive and are taxed.
"Use alternative methods" scream the Greens.
OK I'll use the bus. But wait, bus fares have also gone up. :rolleyes:

They should just add it as an increased excise charge and stop treating us like morons.

Diarmuid

Heroditas wrote: »

Car manufacturers are producign more efficient cars anyway, even before these ridiculous taxes were touted.

Only because petrol is getting expensive and the market demanded them(witness the failure of US manufacturers). The carbon tax will foster investment in other less polluting areas, again thanks to market demand not out of some altruistic endeavour, maybe hybrids but who knows.

Heroditas wrote: »

They should just add it as an increased excise charge and stop treating us like morons

Now I really don't understand your reasoning. You don't want a tax that has been proposed and supported by economists the world over but you are ok with some dumb revenue raising tax. I despair.

Blazer

Diarmuid wrote: »

Who's the gimp here?

lol...and how long are they in government now?:rolleyes:
The gimps have done absolutely fcukall since they got in power except prostitute themselves to FF and show basically that treehuggers really don't have a fúckin clue how to run a country.

old boy

seeing as we are on about green issues, limerick co. council will not accept any more planning permission applications for wind turbines, this green stuff is all about collecting revenue plain and simple.

Diarmuid

Berkut wrote: »

lol...and how long are they in government now?:rolleyes:
The gimps have done absolutely fcukall since they got in power except prostitute themselves to FF and show basically that treehuggers really don't have a fúckin clue how to run a country.

yea it's shocking that a party of 6 haven't implemented all their policies in a government of 85 :rolleyes: With an electorate like this it's no wonder Ireland is screwed.

Heroditas

Diarmuid wrote: »

Now I really don't understand your reasoning. You don't want a tax that has been proposed and supported by economists the world over but you are ok with some dumb revenue raising tax. I despair.

When China and India start paying these taxes I'll take it seriously.
I can't reconcile this tax with any benefits whatsoever. Carbon credits - a way of making money out of literally thin air.

anonymous_joe

ei.sdraob wrote: »

there are some very bright Irish engineers now btw

dont be putting these people down, my relative is an engineer who was involved in building a nuclear plant btw

we can always import more German equipment and labor as ESB have done in past

as long as its run by a private company and a state body (hello Eirgrid) it can work quite well and gives us time to build up more renewables and stop burning fuels

Ah it's not engineers I'd be worried about. I doubt we'd have the right political will to manage such a utility.

imme

it's government policy, you voted for them.:cool:

nesf

gerrymadden1 wrote: »

Probably on 300K + per annum and like his colleagues in the ESRI, changes his predictions at the whim of his political masters.

ESRI guys (in general) aren't on anything close to that.

dresden8

nesf wrote: »

ESRI guys (in general) aren't on anything close to that.

Any idea what they are on? Min, Max and Average.

Especially in this time of openness when the Dept. of Finance have no qualms issuing details of the Public Sector.

Organisations funded by the Public Sector should also face this kind of scrutiny.

In the interest of openness.

View

Heroditas wrote: »

I can't reconcile this tax with any benefits whatsoever. Carbon credits - a way of making money out of literally thin air.

The benefit is those who use up more carbon have to pay more for it whereas the rest who use less pay less. The alternative, after all, is that lower carbon users would have to pay the same as higher carbon users. So, lower carbon users benefit from the proposal.

What, you don't like it? Fair enough, but then why should lower carbon users like the alternative?

It is akin to suggesting that someone who produces 100Kgs of domestic waste a year should pay the same as someone who produces 1000Kgs.

c montgomery

Agriculture accounts for over 30% of CO2 emissions and 49% of methane emissions which is a bigger contributer to climate change than CO2.

Are the government going to do anything to the farmers to get them to reduce this? Of course their not.
They will increrase the tax on petrol and diesel, home heating oil and gas for all us mugs while the farmer can still get his green diesel and drive away mad. Of course the farmer needs his green diesel to run his farm machinary. I however have to pay full price for my diesel for my van to run my business. Complete double standards.

Maybe they should put a tax on animal feed too while their at it as its the cattle who are the main polluters in this climate change, carbon tax farce.

Link to an interesting read on the topic
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Environment/Atmosphere/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,930,en.pdf

nesf

dresden8 wrote: »

Any idea what they are on? Min, Max and Average.

Especially in this time of openness when the Dept. of Finance have no qualms issuing details of the Public Sector.

Organisations funded by the Public Sector should also face this kind of scrutiny.

In the interest of openness.

I think the professors there are paid wages similar to the Professor level in academics, which tops out at around 150K but I don't know for certain. Given academic salaries and given that people for both are drawn from an identical pool (i.e. PhD qualified Economists with an academic background generally), their salaries aren't going to be hugely different. Minimum salary for a PhD level economist is around 30K in academics most would be on 40-50K depending on years of service, publication record etc. Actually, people in general vastly overestimate what academics pays for the average person working in it.

nesf

Heroditas wrote: »

I can't reconcile this tax with any benefits whatsoever. Carbon credits - a way of making money out of literally thin air.

In economic terms what's going on is putting a tax on the externality of generating CO2. Basically, when we buy petrol, use electricity etc we aren't paying for the damage it does to the environment so there's no incentive for us to not do it on these grounds built into the price. This works along the same lines as a congestion charge for traffic in the inner city. Everyone who takes a car into the city at rush hour is adding a bit of time to everyone else's journey due to extra congestion. If you put a tax, where people are charged more for driving at rush hour than they are for off-peak hours the idea is to encourage those who could do their business in the city at a different time or who could reasonably use public transport to do so. The result is that inner city traffic drops during rushhour, less pollution is caused and the average journey time decreases. The purpose obstensively in both examples is to change behaviour not generate cash. Now honestly, no Government is ever going to look at it just from a behaviour point of view and they will find schemes more attractive if they can generate an income stream.

If you want to change behaviour, just telling people to do something is a lot less effective than actually putting a price on certain kinds of behaviour. If it helps, you can view the true cost of something as including the externality charge i.e. that petrol should always be a bit more expensive to help clean up the mess that's left from people driving and creating pollution etc.


Edit:

Perhaps the simplest and strongest argument I can think of for these kinds of taxes is this:

The Government needs to raise X extra funds. Now they can do this by raising the lower tax band by so much or they can introduce an extrenality tax and attempt to modify behaviour as well as raise money. Now the first only disincentivises working and doesn't have any beneficial effect for society, in fact it can be argued that such actions have a worse outcome for society. The second on the other hand at least has the chance of modifying behaviour so that society can benefit from the changes as well as raising the tax revenue needed. Now you can't replace income tax with externality taxes, there just aren't enough of them but they are a far more favourable way to tax people than a simple income tax.

Blazer

Diarmuid wrote: »

yea it's shocking that a party of 6 haven't implemented all their policies in a government of 85 :rolleyes: With an electorate like this it's no wonder Ireland is screwed.

All of their policies?
Can you name one? bar the so-called carbon tax...as we all know it's complete bull**** and another name for a stealth tax.
With electorate like you it's no wonder the country is fcuked. You're quite happy to screw the country over for your own gain..in this case carbon taxes blah blah.
And as for fur farming...this really brings home what a bunch of muppets the green party are.
You do realise that Gormley sold out the whole grassroots GP when he got in..don't you? but sure..at long as you can ban fur farming you'll turn a blind eye to this.

Long Onion

Diarmuid wrote: »

Well for a start there is a choice. The choice currently is between a a larger and a smaller engine. Compare the upcoming VW Polo TDI (89g/km) and the Ford Mondeo 2.0l petrol (189g/km) for instance. The carbon tax encourages people to buy the former and should have less than half the carbon tax of the latter

I have already made the choice and drive a diesel car which returns 55mpg and has a low co2 output. The changes to the VRT system were aimed at helping people make this choice. Under the proposed carbon tax, I will still have to pay more as the tax will be levied on the fuel and not on the car emissions. Even if i had picked an electric car, i would still have to pay more as a tax will also be levied on the electricity required to charge it. The fact is that I will have to pay more due to my commute - I will still drive the same distance to work.

Diarmuid wrote: »

The fact that you have bad roads, no broadband, your own sewage tank makes no differences to the amount you are polluting.

You are not taking my point in context. I was responding to the arguments that state rural dwellers recieve more infrastructure per capita than those in urban areas due to the cost of providing these services in areas where the population is dispersed. As you can see, I get no infrastructure aoutside that which I pay for myself. I still pay the same tax as everyone else - if this tax take is not going towards the infrastructure necessary to provide me with an alternative to commuting (be that good public transport or job creation closer to home) then why should I be expected to pay for the 'privilage' of making a journey foisted on me by failure to equitably allocate the tax take?

Diarmuid wrote: »

You are looking at the situation in black and white which suits your point of view. However it's not a choice between polluting and not polluting. It's a graduated scale between the two. The idea of a carbon tax is to encourage people to buy lower polluting cars and as a result encourage car companies to build more efficient cars. And it works. Compare the cars in the US vs European cars. A world of a difference solely down to the price of fuel.

I would suggest that the quickest way of bringing about change in this respect is not to tax the consumer but to regulate the motor industry in relation to carbon outputs. As it stands, the government is standing behind the option which will produce the most revenue - is this coincidental? - I think not.

mikkael

Re: O.P.

The Greens are Fianna Fail's sanitary towel. They will end up in the same sanitary bin as the P.D.'s at the next election.

Heroditas

View wrote: »

The benefit is those who use up more carbon have to pay more for it whereas the rest who use less pay less. The alternative, after all, is that lower carbon users would have to pay the same as higher carbon users. So, lower carbon users benefit from the proposal.

What, you don't like it? Fair enough, but then why should lower carbon users like the alternative?

It is akin to suggesting that someone who produces 100Kgs of domestic waste a year should pay the same as someone who produces 1000Kgs.

In the same way as the EU is paying for CO2 emmissions while China and India and many developing countries who produce more CO2 aren't opaying anything at all?

This must be what Eamon Ryan meant when he said we "needed the EU to help with climate change" and hence why it was vital to vote for Lisbon, i.e. try to justify another levy while many other countries have told the CO2 Gestapo to eff off.

ei.sdraob

old boy wrote: »

seeing as we are on about green issues, limerick co. council will not accept any more planning permission applications for wind turbines, this green stuff is all about collecting revenue plain and simple.

Im trying to get permission to put up a small 3-5kw domestic turbine

there are so many regulations, and because the land is 500m away from a bunch of rocks called a "castle" i dont think it will ever happen

supporting green technologies my arse

its all alot of hot air

once again all these new taxes will not help the environment

Diarmuid

Long Onion wrote: »

I will still have to pay more as the tax will be levied on the fuel and not on the car emissions. .

Levying it on the fuel is the same as levying it on the carbon emissions, it's just easier to measure:

Long Onion wrote: »

As you can see, I get no infrastructure aoutside that which I pay for myself. I still pay the same tax as everyone else - if this tax take is not going towards the infrastructure necessary to provide me with an alternative to commuting (be that good public transport or job creation closer to home) then why should I be expected to pay for the 'privilage' of making a journey foisted on me by failure to equitably allocate the tax take?.

Are you kidding? Surely you are not suggesting that the services provided to you (such as the roads you are driving)does not cost the government more to provide than to someone living in an apartment block in Dublin?

Long Onion wrote: »

I would suggest that the quickest way of bringing about change in this respect is not to tax the consumer but to regulate the motor industry in relation to carbon outputs. As it stands, the government is standing behind the option which will produce the most revenue - is this coincidental? - I think not.

So instead levy cars with high CO2 emissions? Which gets passed onto the consumer. And even then that's not equitable. If someone has a Porsche but it's parked up for 350 days of the year vs someone driving their Corolla 100km each day, clearly the fairer option is to charge the latter more as they pollute more?