How would you do it

Gurgle

Budget 2010, Cut €4billion - how would you do it?
Here's mine:

Childrens' allowance:
Reduced by half, with the other half provided in the form of tax credits for working parents.
(If you're not working, you don't need to pay for child-care / school buses etc)

Social Welfare:
- Cut by 5%
- TV License, telephone allowance - Gone
- Back to school 'Clothing and footwear' allowance
€200 for a child aged 2(why?) to 11
€305 for a child aged 12 to 22
Gone, replaced by a payment of €60 per eligible child made to the school to provide a uniform (Yes, from Dunnes. If it's good enough for working peoples' kids its good enough for those on social).
- Communion allowance - Gone (Let the church help its parishoners)

PAYE:
- Lower band 20% (Up to €25k)
- Mid band 35% (€25k to €50k)
- High band 50% (Over €50k)

Public sector pay:
- Absolute cap of €150k for everybody whose income comes from the public purse, (including pro-rata pay for consultants / contractors).
- Cut general pay by ~5% on average (On a sliding scale from 10% at €100k)
- Wrap up the pension scheme, all workers get a transfer fund at NPV to take to a private pension

Tax avoidance schemes:
- Tax relief on pension contributions - Cap at €10k
- Section 23, are you joking? - Gone

Other:
Tax on second homes: €200 - Change to 1% of value
Carbon tax: This should be done in such a way that cleaner living actually saves you money (Not a chance).

Road building:
Call a halt and re-examine.
e.g. the M3 could be finished on one side only and become a decent N3.

All projects not started should be reviewed, pulled back to whats actually neccessary and put out to re-tender (with the expectation of a dramatic reduction in costs as building contractors have gone from gouging mode to survival mode).

Government stupidity:
Expense accounts audited, checked, published and anything inappropiately claimed to be re-paid or face prosecution - going back the last 7 years.
No contractors, consultants, farm-outs, pay-offs or any other method of passing millions of public money to your mates.
Every department is full of well qualified staff who should be allowed / obliged to do the high end work that needs doing.

ei.sdraob

theres a "Communion allowance"?

****ing hell :mad:

Tipp Man

Gurgle wrote: »

PAYE:
- Lower band 20% (Up to €25k)
- Mid band 35% (€25k to €50k)
- High band 50% (Over €50k)

Agree with a lot of what you say (not necessarily the road projects)

Just on PAYE above, how does this effect the tax take for say the first 6 months of the year? How much extra does it actually bring in?? would you eliminate the levies??

Just looking at it though your proposing to effectively tax the "rich" as you are actually reducing the tax of the middle earners but increasing it for those over 50k, surely the problem is that the lower incomes aren't paying enough tax?? (4% pay 47% of the tax)

Fratton Fred

cut the number of TD's
get rid of the teacher's pensions they are entitled to
tax horse breeding properly (I think this is being done anyway
increase corporation tax

ei.sdraob

Fratton Fred wrote: »

increase corporation tax

no

btw its already fairly high (not 12.5% for most businesses in this country)
due to hidden corpo tax surcharges (circa 20% me thinks) faced by SMEs

not that many companies would be having any profit to be taxed in this day and age

Fratton Fred

ei.sdraob wrote: »

no

btw its already fairly high (not 12.5% for most businesses in this country)
due to hidden corpo tax surcharges (circa 20% me thinks) faced by SMEs

not that many companies would be having any profit to be taxed in this day and age

I thought it was 12% on traded income, 25% on non traded.

It is this 12% that needs to be tackled. This is what the multinationals are exploiting and a 1% increase in this would still keep ireland competitive, raise some money and keep France and Germany happy.

ei.sdraob

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I thought it was 12% on traded income, 25% on non traded.

It is this 12% that needs to be tackled. This is what the multinationals are exploiting and a 1% increase in this would still keep ireland competitive, raise some money and keep France and Germany happy.

wrong

any company (referred to as close company) with less than 5 directors (thats most of SMEs in this country) is liable for

corporation tax "surcharge" (i know i was stung with it before)


[13.2.5] Surcharge on certain undistributed income of close companies [Section 440 TCA 1997]

Section 440 provides for an additional charge of corporation tax (referred to as a “surcharge”) on close companies at the rate of 20 per cent of the excess of the aggregate of the distributable investment income and the distributable estate income over the distributions made for an accounting period [440(1)(a)].

mind you large companies <insert microsoft/google> who wash million thru this country of course dont have to pay this

drunkmonkey

I would slash minimum wage and put in a sliding scale system for social welfare to stop it being the acceptable career choice it has become..

I would intoduce a 1cent mobile phone txt tax, I would pour huge amounts of capital expenditure into theme parks and indoor facilities.

I would adjust teachers wages to reflect they work less than 9mts a year.

I would introduce a flat car tax of €500 a year for all cars regardless of engine size.

I would slash the price of cigarettes & alcohol to encourage bargin tourists from the UK.

oh and i'd bring back happy hour.

Tipp Man

Further to my post above this table should really be noted with regards to who is actually paying the taxes in this country

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63041551&postcount=26

53057432.jpg

Gurgle

Tipp Man wrote: »

Further to my post above this table should really be noted with regards to who is actually paying the taxes in this country

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=63041551&postcount=26

53057432.jpg

That table is from 2006 - I can't find anything more recent.

Tipp Man

Gurgle wrote: »

That table is from 2006 - I can't find anything more recent.

And the tax net has tightened even further since then so now the bigger earners are paying even more in tax

Gurgle

Tipp Man wrote: »

4% pay 47% of the tax

Based on 2006, yes.
Look closer at those figures:
1% pay 20% of the tax - but who are those 1%?
1% of a workforce of 2.2 million is 22,000 people ,earning €10billion between them.

These are people who:
a) Earn more than €200k per year (Average: €440k)
b) Earn it all through the PAYE system - i.e. its not the earnings of their businesses, its their actual salaries.

Wanna guess?
I'll give you a hint: This is where your PAYE goes

Count Dooku

Introduce requirement that applicants for jobseekers allowance must legally reside in Ireland for 8 years. It is perfectly matching famous DIRECTIVE 2004/38/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

16 As long as the beneficiaries of the right of residence do not become an unreasonable burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State they should not be expelled.
Therefore, an expulsion measure should not be the automatic consequence of recourse to the social assistance system. The host Member State should examine whether it is a case of temporary difficulties and take into account the duration of residence, the personal circumstances and the amount of aid granted in order to consider whether the beneficiary has become an unreasonable burden on its social assistance system and to proceed to his expulsion. In no case should an expulsion measure be adopted against workers, self-employed persons or job-seekers as defined by the Court of Justice save on grounds of public policy or public security.

2 years of jobseeker benefit will be enough

Could save up to 2 Bn, because mass redundancies started in 2007

zootroid

First of all, reduce the salaries of TDs and senior civil servants. I don't see why any civil servant should earn more than 150k a year, could even reduce that further. Obviously this won't sort out the nation's finances, but will go some way to improving the credibility of the government when asking others to take a cut. There is also room for reducing the numbers of TDs as well.

All public sector pensions changed from defined benefit to defined contribution.

Maximum 20 days holidays per year for civil servants.

All TDs expenses to be vouched, with reasonable guidelines as to what they can claim for.

No TD can avail of a pension until they retire from politics. TDs can only avail of a single pension. TDs cannot hold onto public sector jobs while being a TD (teaching jobs etc)

Reduction of 10% in job seekers benefit and job seekers allowance.

Reduce the minimum wage by 5%.

Each TD should also be reviewing how their department operates. If there is a quango that provides little benefit, then this should be abolished.

Television licence should be abolished, and RTE sold to private investors. I don't see why the state should provide a service that can just as easily be provided by the private sector (TV3).

Introduction of water rates as both a revenue raising excercise and to ensure that water is used responsibly.

Introduction of increased competition in public transport services. For example, the price of a Bus Eireann ticket from Cork to Dublin only came down when Aircoach started operating the route. Public Transport is ridiculously expensive in this country (eg, a same day return train ticket from Kilkenny to Dublin is 32 euro), and something needs to be done to reduce the prices.

As a previous poster outlined, get rid of unnecessary social welfare payments and allowances (communion allowance? WTF???!!). I was earning a decent wage in Dublin (35k) but was still entitled to rent allowance. These types of allowances should either be means tested or abolished altogether.

Bring back happy hour should pubs wish to have one.

Obviously I am just commenting on things that I see as a consumer, but some of the legislation that I see that results in decreased competition really annoys me. Drink prices are generally the same no matter what pub I go to, and all pubs shut at the same time, so there is really little difference between pubs! I also heard that the rents of commercial properties can only be negotiated upwards?! Where is the free market there?

By the way, I am open to correction on any assumptions I make with the above.

TGPS

Interesting and highly delfationary - which begs the question what do you do next year?

For what it's worth here's what I'd do:-

• Increase children's allowance by 10% for any family earning a total income of €35k (average industrial wage + 10%) - ("money in the purse is spent quicker than money in the wallet"). No increase for families with an income up to €70k or where there is no earner and a sliding scale thereafter with no family earning more than €100k receiving children's allowance.
• Halve unemployment benefit for anyone under the age of 24 with no dependents.
• Abolish stamp duty.
• Reduce Corporation Tax by 2%.
• Increase the top rate of income tax to 50% and modify the tax bands.
• Double the R&D Tax Credit.
• Abolish the training and employment levy.
• Suspend Employers' PRSI for 12 months.
• Reduce the total public sector pay bill by 20% through a combination of pay reductions, redundancies, redeployment and reform.
• Sell the ESB, Dublin Port and Dublin Airport with the receipts going to fund local infra-structure projects.

I'd also offer to reduce VAT by 5% (or to parity with the UK) BUT only after discussing with the business bodies what they would do in return - there'd be no point in reducing the VAT if they wouldn't pass on the reduction - reduce only if they agree to (a) pass on the reduction and (b) add some reductions of their own......

gurramok

And what is the plan for €4bn cutbacks for:

2011
2012
2013
2014

?

You see the hint? If we implement the OP plan, where is the money coming from for the next 4 budgets?

Economic recovery will only help a little bit to narrow that 20bn per yr deficit. There needs to be a reality that everything expenditure side has to be slashed and that reality has not falling on many people yet.

MaceFace

Talk of a 50% upper rate.
I assume you are leaving PRSI (this 6%) and I would hope that you would remove the ceiling as well.

That pushes the marginal rate to 56%. What about the levies?

Do people not think that if anyone on the upper rate has to pay 56% marginal, then we will have quite a few people leave the country and find it much more difficult to attract quality cadidates.

Take Google as an example - 30 different nationalities working there. How many of these people would consider going home and what would that do for the multinationals that we rely on?

Gurgle

MaceFace wrote: »

Do people not think that if anyone on the upper rate has to pay 56% marginal, then we will have quite a few people leave the country and find it much more difficult to attract quality cadidates.

Not to any major extent, afaik the majority of foreign nationals working here wouldn't need to worry about tax rates on earnings over €50k.

Fentdog84

I would put a salary cap on Politicians, Bankers, doctors, consultants, & other highly paid public servants to a more just wage of say, 75k a year, instead of cuttting the lower paid members of the public service. Anyone who's working in the public interest being funded by the taxpayer should not get anything higher than this, not because they're not great workers or great people, but just as a matter of fairness towards the rest of society.
I'm not saying we should turn into a communist country or anything, but the fall of the celtic tiger/green eyed monster has shown us that privatisation & capitalism isnt always the answer and we need to start fresh with some different ideas to create a fairer society.

seclachi

TGPS wrote: »

• Halve unemployment benefit for anyone under the age of 24 with no dependents.
• Sell the ESB, Dublin Port and Dublin Airport with the receipts going to fund local infra-structure projects.

.

I dont get why people should get more all of sudden when they turn 24, life is no less expensive when your younger. It should be graded on dependants and living at home, thats fine, but age makes no sense, your just dicking over disadvantaged youths.

I think the ESB actually turns a profit, most power companies do. Would make sense to keep it, especially considering what a disaster some other privatisations turned out to be.

What would I do myself ?

- Reduce social welfare on a yearly basis to make it worthwhile to work
- Introduce a luxury tax (I think they have this in denmark) on luxury electronics like large TVs, expensive computers, expensive cloths and the like. Would be on a yearly basis in order not to completely decimate the retail sector.
-Reform the public sector, my number one thing would be to dispense with the job for life thing if at all possible. Its not begrudgery or anything, but I think it would really increase the performance the government get and the bang for the buck.
- Public sector wage cut, unfortunate but it has to be done
- A serious hack and slash on RTE, drop the budget by a half, more focus on National interests than just buying on foreign shows, theres always tv3 as well.
- Do something similar to the arts, reduce artist tax relief, especially on the big artists
-See if it is possible wrangle some sort of tax deal with the UK for northern shopping.
-Knock 20-30% off tds salary's at least
- War bonds, offer a long term and decent rate of interest, probably wouldnt be much uptake, but worth a shot.
-Introduce college fees, means test for less well off and have a generous enough band
-Encourage people to study locally by offering reduced grants if they can study the desired subject at a home town

seclachi

Fentdog84 wrote: »

I would put a salary cap on Politicians, Bankers, doctors, consultants, & other highly paid public servants to a more just wage of say, 75k a year, instead of cuttting the lower paid members of the public service. Anyone who's working in the public interest being funded by the taxpayer should not get anything higher than this, not because they're not great workers or great people, but just as a matter of fairness towards the rest of society.
I'm not saying we should turn into a communist country or anything, but the fall of the celtic tiger/green eyed monster has shown us that privatisation & capitalism isnt always the answer and we need to start fresh with some different ideas to create a fairer society.

I think this would cause a massive brain drain (Well not with bankers or politicians ofc). Its actually very high here too right now, look at this graphic from national geographic http://s.ngm.com/2008/12/community-doctors/img/follow-up-615.jpg (posted in 2008, so it covers the boomtime). Doing that would be devastating for the country.

The number of consultants in the country is quite small, and trust me you dont want to be somebody who comes to hospital with some rare illness and find the one specialist in the country has fe*ked off because he could get 10x the wages in the UK.

mikemac

Gurgle wrote: »

- Back to school 'Clothing and footwear' allowance
€200 for a child aged 2(why?) to 11

I thought this was a typing mistake but then I checked it out
I know you can start primary school at 4.

Who is claiming for 2 and 3 years old and what for?
I can't figure out why that was introduced

It's only a minor point, just was struck me about your post

Daithinski

zootroid wrote: »

All TDs expenses to be vouched, with reasonable guidelines as to what they can claim for.

I'd go a step further on this and give the f*ckers a fixed budget to work from.

Gurgle

mikemac wrote: »

Who is claiming for 2 and 3 years old and what for?

Thats the thing - its an allowance, not an expense. You can claim it (if you're on welfare) but you don't have to explain what you did with it.
There are a large number of people in this country who have never worked and never intend to. You can be damn sure they know all about it.

mikemac wrote: »

I can't figure out why that was introduced
It's only a minor point, just was struck me about your post

^^ These are only the ones I found out about googling 'social welfare'. If you want to know about everything you can claim for go to your nearest council estate and knock on the door beside the largest mercedes.

Tipp Man

Gurgle wrote: »

Not to any major extent, afaik the majority of foreign nationals working here wouldn't need to worry about tax rates on earnings over €50k.

What do you mean?? that the majority of foreign nationals are earning under 50k??

Tipp Man

Fentdog84 wrote: »

I would put a salary cap on Politicians, Bankers, doctors, consultants, & other highly paid public servants to a more just wage of say, 75k a year, instead of cuttting the lower paid members of the public service. Anyone who's working in the public interest being funded by the taxpayer should not get anything higher than this, not because they're not great workers or great people, but just as a matter of fairness towards the rest of society.
I'm not saying we should turn into a communist country or anything, but the fall of the celtic tiger/green eyed monster has shown us that privatisation & capitalism isnt always the answer and we need to start fresh with some different ideas to create a fairer society.

There isn't a person in the country i'd say who wants PS cuts more than myself but I'm sorry the above is just bo##oks. There are plenty of excellent PS workers with huge responsibility and deserve to be paid more than 75k, at that rate you wouldn't get anybody even half decent to work there. Hell teachers with experience and any kind of A post are nearly on that

Try 150k as a limit and then you might have a point

And whats fair about me working 60 hours a week and paying many thousands in tax to give to some fu##er who has to do nothing to get his social (I talking about the long term who have never contributed to this country)

MaceFace

Tipp Man wrote: »

What do you mean?? that the majority of foreign nationals are earning under 50k??

I read it that way as well and to be a bit harsh about it, I don't care about the foreign nationals who earn under 50k as they are generally easily replaceable.

My fear is that the really good people who work in the real knowledge economy and are difficult to find - if these leave it will only push up the wages companies have to pay to those that are left (supply and demand) which means there is another reason for these companies not to base themselves here.
Are people aware of how many foreign nationals Ireland is really dependent on (and I am not talking about unskilled Eastern Europeans)

Tipp Man

MaceFace wrote: »

I read it that way as well and to be a bit harsh about it, I don't care about the foreign nationals who earn under 50k as they are generally easily replaceable.

My fear is that the really good people who work in the real knowledge economy and are difficult to find - if these leave it will only push up the wages companies have to pay to those that are left (supply and demand) which means there is another reason for these companies not to base themselves here.
Are people aware of how many foreign nationals Ireland is really dependent on (and I am not talking about unskilled Eastern Europeans)

I work in a very niche and profitable industry and there are a lot of foreigners on very good salaries, let me tell you the mess that this country is in isn't passing them by and the union blub about taxing the rich whilst amusing at first is starting to wear thin.

God forbid anything upwards happened to Corp Tax

doubtfir3

I think that social welfare should be operated on a sliding scale:

When you become unemployed you should initially receive your full entitlement - €200 and then with small additions for dependants etc. You will be entitled to apply for mortgage interest relief, rent allowance, fuel allowance etc etc
After one year, your payment is reduced by 25% but you can still retain additional entitlements.
After the second year you are entitled to a maximum payment of €100 with reduced additions for dependants and rent relief entitlements etc cease.

I believe that the majority of people on the dole at present want to work, and so should be fully supported by the country while they are seeking employment - thus a full entitlement for 12 months.

After that, everything reduces simply because in many cases a person simply doesn't want to work or is unwilling to take up employment in certain areas because of a feeling of being over-qualified etc.

The crux of it is that there is less money in the economy at present and we have seen prices falling as a result - not a week goes by where we don't see an ad for oranges being cheaper, actimels being reduced etc etc - this will continue and prices will quickly fall to acceptable levels in the retail sector.

The key to our recovery as far as I can see is to stimulate the retail aspect of the economy - we need to reduce VAT, excise and other stupid taxes. Once that has been done, we then need to reduce VRT in order to at least try and make the irish car retailers more competitive with the UK.

If we can get it into the governments head to stop trying to tax their way out of this downturn then things will be on the right track.

We also need to take on the unions - after all the public sector is widely seen to be overpopulated. In most roles, there are too many middle and upper management staff and not enough on the ground where they are needed most.

Redistribute staff across departments, get rid of flexi-time, get rid of sick-pay and you will begin to see a much more streamlined public sector.

Those who want to work will continue to do so and will prosper, those who don't will leave (eventually) and can get alternative employment or can go on the dole.. again subject to the conditions outlined above.

It really is time for us to stop faffing about and dipping our toes in the water - we need action from our ridiculous government NOW. No more of these committees and meetings, we need to act immediately to resolve the issues and avoid a complete melt-down.

ei.sdraob

seclachi wrote: »

I think the ESB actually turns a profit, most power companies do.

(disclaimer i worked for them)

they make a huge profit even with increased competition (salaries are high but are a tiny proportion of costs, see company accounts which are available by googling)

i think the public-private model of ESB is what alot of the public sector can be modeled after

the company was split into ~4 subcompanies (power gen, customer supply, international etc) with a division called "shared services" this is HR, IT, accounting etc providing shared services to the above, very efficient
the grid remained under state control and was moved to eirgird

the company is half owned by state, a bit by private investors and another bit by employees; hence a powerful motivator to generate profits and close down old inneficient/dirty plants, and the state maintains a stake so they dont go Enron like on our asses

actually they want to lower prices but cant since the regulator and competition would scream murder (read: interference in free market)



so to summarize ESB is an example of how "privatization" should be done while maintaining key stake-holding

i think alot of the PS can be modeled in this fashion, and it can be a win-win for all (higher wages linked to increased productivity not benchmarking) as happened with ESB

3DataModem

Gurgle wrote: »

PAYE:
- Lower band 20% (Up to €25k)
- Mid band 35% (€25k to €50k)
- High band 50% (Over €50k)

Errr..... so you want to collect LESS income tax?