Are you going to pay the household charge? [Part 1]

mikom

Cesium Clock wrote: »

rob peter to pay paul

Rob peter to pay Hans

xflyer

Watching the news now, scaremongering still going on. Hogan still at it. Now he's telling us the 'international community' won't like if if we don't pay. More like they will applaud us, in my opinion. Plus the head of Fingal CC is claiming he won't have any money to pay people. Seriously does he think we're all stupid? What a fool!

But at least one reporter, Davin-Power made it clear, even if we don't pay it for months it will still only rise to €116. At that the stage the point will be made and the government humiliated.:D I'll happily pay it then.

tayto lover

constitutionus wrote: »

shades of gay mitchell's presidential campaign there !

Yes mind yourself as the backpedallers could bang into you.
There's a lot of them tempering their posts at the minute.
Humble Pie awaits.
The Govt figures are being doctored too as so few are paying.

tayto lover

goz83 wrote: »

I have a €5 bet on paddy power 5/1 for less than 30% to have PAID by the dead line. I think I will throw another €15 at that bet, so I will be €100 up. I predict that a good few will register and pay just beyond the deadline, or within an extended deadline, but the government will have to take the funds in another way....most likely income tax. It will spell the end of them and they will spend another decade, or two trying to recover after the next election.

Don't be mad. The Govt are exaggerating the numbers who have paid so that they don't look too bad. A man who works for Louth Co. Council told me that nowhere near the numbers being given by R.T.E. are paying.

gerryo777

5live wrote: »

No, TDs and senators will have to pay it too. The wording on the bill is poor but it basically says that houses owned by the Mininter of the Environment are exempt but this relates to local authority housing stocks, NOT his personal residence

The tax hogan pays on his personal residence will probably be paid out of the un-vouched expenses that we pay for him.

Biggins

WITH THREE DAYS to go before the deadline, almost three quarters of homes have not yet paid the household charge according to the latest figures.
Figures show 426,599 households had paid the €100 charge by the close of business today, leaving around 1.2 million homes which have not paid.

The figures from the Local Government Management Agency indicate that 31,367 payments were made over the past 24 hours – a slight decrease on the previous day when 31,754 payments were made.

http://www.thejournal.ie/more-than-one-million-households-have-not-yet-paid-the-household-charge-399485-Mar2012/

The numbers above supposedly (according to an earlier report) take into account 20,000+ that is supposed to be just those that have registered and/or a few sending the forms back in protest!

Two interesting comments follow-up that news piece:

Just to clarify. All 1.8 million homes must register, even if they are to receive a waiver. Whatever figure is given by the government is to be subtracted from 1.8 million, and not 1.6 million.
Keep it up everyone though, we’re doing amazing. The poll tax boycott in the UK that got rid of Thatcher only had 18 percent boycotting, we have about 80 percent!!!

And

not quite, i heard 27% have paid or registered so far, if 60% dont pay it will be an amazing example of non-confrontational protest, fair play to everyone who hasn’t and wont pay, i would pay too if the government took a decent hit in their salaries

---

English news piece - they are starting to notice more!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/mar/27/household-charge-rebellion-irish-outlook

Household charge rebellion clouds Irish outlook
Failure by a majority of homeowners to pay by this weekend would mark the first act of collective defiance against austerity

Even the giant leprechaun dressed in a heavy bottle-green coat and a woolly detachable head near a Dublin landmark seemed to be enjoying the sunshine. When he took off his head there wasn't a single sign of perspiration on his face. He appeared happy enough to take a breather and let his companion pass the collection hat around the knots of tourists using their iPhones and mobiles to take a snap beside the Molly Malone statue across the road from the walls of Trinity College.

When he put the ginger-bearded head back on, the leprechaun was asked whether the unseasonably warm weather was making his suit uncomfortable. Faithful to the leprechaun omerta, he gave a non-verbal response: a shake of the head to indicate he wasn't sweltering, and a thumbs-up presumably to show he was happy to see the crowds come out in the sun.

With throngs of shoppers darting in and out of stores on Grafton Street and drinkers slaking their thirsts outside the pubs on side streets all the way up to St Stephen's Green, you could be forgiven for wondering, momentarily at least: recession, what recession?

The government faces a test this week over the €100 (99.29€) flat-rate household charge that every homeowner must pay by the weekend. Failure to pay could result in heavy fines, but only about 30% have done so thus far. The government fears that failure to collect the revenue needed to pay for local government services (the Republic abolished UK-style rates in 1977) would send out a damaging signal that the Irish won't pay their way.

The household charge could be the greatest error of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition's first year in office, and has already been compared (with a more than touch of hyperbole) to Margaret Thatcher's poll tax. There will be no replication of the poll tax riots in Dublin, but if less than half the population signs up by the end of the week it will mark the first act of collective defiance against the austerity programme designed to drive down the national debt and restore international confidence in the economy.

Fine Gael and Labour are starting to realise they have a fight on their hands as they face accusations that they are more interested in penalising mortgage-holders than the bankers and speculators whose greed laid waste to the property market. On Monday the Fine Gael minister of state for finance, Brian Hayes, said that if the government didn't get the revenue from the household charge it would have to find the money from elsewhere, possibly by raising personal taxation.

"Pretending that there is some painless solution to this is utterly delusional," Hayes said. "If we don't want to see jobs being lost because of a taxation system that taxes the hell out of people for working, then the only way to resolve our problem is to look at new sources of taxation." He said the state still needed to borrow €10bn this year to pay for public jobs and services.

Opposition parties, most notably Sinn Féin and the United Left Alliance, are capitalising on the opposition to the charge, although the two blocs have taken different approaches. Sinn Féin TDs who are homeowners will refuse on principle to pay the €100 tax, but the party has stopped short of calling on the public not to pay either, because it says it would not be in a position to pay everyone's fines and legal bills. The ULA, comprising the Socialist party and People Before Profit TDs, has urged all those liable for the tax to refuse payment before the weekend deadline.

The controversy could pose a threat not only for Enda Kenny's administration but for the EU as a whole. If the issue is not resolved by the time Ireland goes to the polls to ratify the EU fiscal compact, voters might be tempted to use the referendum to protest against the tax. In their anger over a domestic issue, the electorate could throw the EU reform process back into chaos.

Inside the student cafe of Independent College on Dawson Street, the cafe's owner, Jonathan, proffers the view that if the weather was like this more of the time, the Irish would not be so weighed down by all the economic doom and gloom.

"Even if you were out of work or skint you could sit out somewhere in a park for instance and at least it would be free. It's much easier to do nothing in the sunshine, whereas you have to go somewhere which can cost if its raining," he joked beneath a Cuban national flag and a stencilled outline of the face of Che Guevara displayed in the café along with the Irish tricolour.

According to Jonathan's theory, a long spell of sunshine would make Ireland a nation of lazy, sleepy, hedonistic Sancho Panzas rather than a rising mass of raging rebellious Ches. We would be too busy baking under the sun to care about direct action. But Irish radicals should not be too despondent, even if the masses seem more interested at present in sunscreen than socialism. Greece is sun-kissed for most of the year, and yet those long periods of blue skies have failed to stop the Greeks from revolting.

squod

dvpower wrote: »

.

One other thing - is it true that those cnuts in Dail Eireann are exempt from the charge?

dvpower wrote: »

Of course its not true. Don't be so silly.

Your handing yourself a pay rise in one hand and levying yourself with a charge in the other. If the difference between the two means you gain then I thinks it's safe to say it's the same as an exemption.

In other news.........

The Irish Independent can reveal that the country's 34 county managers get a severance lump sum when they retire -- and it's worth an average €74,000.

The revelation comes in the wake of an outcry over the same type of payment given to former secretary general Dermot McCarthy as part of a retirement package worth €713,000

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has insisted the Cabinet has no choice but to give the extra payments that substantially boost the pension pots of the most senior public servants.

The Cabinet has no choice huh? How about introducing special laws like the ones they're talking about to breach data protection rights?

the groutch

I'm just hoping we stay the right side of a million non-payers, I think that's something of a battleline at the moment

Newaglish

Cesium Clock wrote: »

why was 170m took from the councils to pay 'other debts' then,
now we are asked to stump 160m to give to the councils

rob peter to pay paul

Have you got a link for that? It doesn't even matter - we still have a deficit. Have you seen our accounts?

dvpower

squod wrote: »

Your handing yourself a pay rise in one hand and levying yourself with a charge in the other. If the difference between the two means you gain then I thinks it's safe to say it's the same as an exemption.

I got a payrise last year. Is that the same as an exemption?

And why are you quoting someone else's post against my name?

secman

NO

Every time I hear Big Phil on the radio it just makes me more and more decided against paying this registration fee, because that's what it is. The real property tax is coming next year according to Big Phil, and it will be multibles of the registration fee. Big Phil constantly tells us that we are in dire need of money and if we lived in UK we would be paying a large property tax, but does not tell us that Income tax is lower, road tax is lower, hospital, doctors, prescriptions are free. No VRT on cars in UK. No USC. Councils actually collect your waste !

If we are in dire need of money , why are we converting a Zombie Bank promissery note of €3,100,000,000 owed to German/French banks into State Bonds @ an interst rate of 6.8% per annum......... annual cost of €211 million on interest for 13 years thats nearly another €3 billion...........Absolute Fcking BONKERS.


Secman

mickydoomsux

Newaglish wrote: »

Have you got a link for that? It doesn't even matter - we still have a deficit. Have you seen our accounts?

I've been asking for days for a reputable link from anyone providing proof that the money from the household charge is going to "foreign gamblers". Nothing even approaching proof has arrived.

The one guy that claimed he had previously proven it ended up getting banned for using two accounts to agree with himself and thank his own posts. Before that he spent his time insulting me and a few other people in between parroting the SF and ULA slogans and never getting around to reposting his "proof".

The entire no campaign is based on half truths, conspiracy theories and outright lies. Just be honest, you don't want to pay because you'd rather have the 100 bucks in your own arse-pocket.

squod

dvpower wrote: »

And why are you quoting someone else's post against my name?

oops

dvpower wrote: »

I got a payrise last year. Is that the same as an exemption?

Which government department do you work for?

squod

mickydoomsux wrote: »

The entire no campaign is based on half truths, conspiracy theories and outright lies. Just be honest, you don't want to pay because you'd rather have the 100 bucks in your own arse-pocket.

The conspiracy theories are coming from the yes side. As are the outrageous lies.

blowtorch

http://www.ipav.ie/documents/Industry/IPAV_holds_meeting_with_Minister_Hogan.pdf

Phil Hogan (Auctioneer) confides in his fellow Auctioneers last July that (as regards the household charge) 'It was likely, he said, that the monies raised would go to the Exchequer rather than to the local authorities'

Enough is enough. Parking Levy, Motor Insurance Levy, Life Assurance Levy, Health Insurance Levy (€285 per adult and € 95 per child), ESB (PSO) Levy etc.etc. Get lost Phil 'bully-boy' Hogan

dvpower

squod wrote: »

Which government department do you work for?

How would that be relevant?
Are civil servants who got payrises last year exempted?

squod

dvpower wrote: »

How would that be relevant?
Are civil servants who got payrises last year exempted?

If you're an interested party you could declare it.

Bruthal

dvpower wrote: »

How would that be relevant?
Are civil servants who got payrises last year exempted?

No, but maybe they would feel an increased tax take might strengthen their job and higher pay security.

Cesium Clock

mickydoomsux wrote: »

I've been asking for days for a reputable link from anyone providing proof that the money from the household charge is going to "foreign gamblers". Nothing even approaching proof has arrived.

The one guy that claimed he had previously proven it ended up getting banned for using two accounts to agree with himself and thank his own posts. Before that he spent his time insulting me and a few other people in between parroting the SF and ULA slogans and never getting around to reposting his "proof".

The entire no campaign is based on half truths, conspiracy theories and outright lies. Just be honest, you don't want to pay because you'd rather have the 100 bucks in your own arse-pocket.

wheres the proof it is not, when the full housetax is imposed and say its an average of €1000 per household paid by 1.6 million householders are you seriously saying none will go to the unsecured Bondholders, or will we have a park and a library each.

dvpower

squod wrote: »

If you're an interested party you could declare it.

If I was a civil servants, would that make me an interested party?

squod

blowtorch wrote: »

http://www.ipav.ie/documents/Industry/IPAV_holds_meeting_with_Minister_Hogan.pdf

Phil Hogan (Auctioneer) confides in his fellow Auctioneers last July that (as regards the household charge) 'It was likely, he said, that the monies raised would go to the Exchequer rather than to the local authorities'

Enough is enough. Parking Levy, Motor Insurance Levy, Life Assurance Levy, Health Insurance Levy (€285 per adult and € 95 per child), ESB (PSO) Levy etc.etc. Get lost Phil 'bully-boy' Hogan

Black and white. Cheers.

squod

dvpower wrote: »

If I was a civil servants, would that make me an interested party?

I asked which department you worked for not whether you were or were not a civil servant. It's up to you to declare your interest(s).

Ghandee

Been quite busy today, was over in the isle of man on business, what have I missed?

Few of the yes posters seem to have faded away a wee bit?

dvpower

squod wrote: »

Black and white. Cheers.

The legislation makes it clear where the money is going. There is no mystery about it.
One would think that the government don't publish accounts and they can somehow hide where money goes from the people.

squod

Ghandee wrote: »

Been quite busy today, was over in the isle of man on business, what have I missed?

Isle of man eh? Suit you........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1fMf8CB7jE

buzz123

Here's another reason I won't be paying...

http://www.herald.ie/news/loophole-that-exempts-1m-houses-from-levy-3063378.html

Fair and equitable?? NOT!

Cesium Clock

dvpower wrote: »

The legislation makes it clear where the money is going. There is no mystery about it.
One would think that the government don't publish accounts and they can somehow hide where money goes from the people.

as the 250m euro tribunal proved

dvpower

squod wrote: »

I asked which department you worked for not whether you were or were not a civil servant. It's up to you to declare your interest(s).

How would working in any government department be an interest ?

Freddie59

mickydoomsux wrote: »

I've been asking for days for a reputable link from anyone providing proof that the money from the household charge is going to "foreign gamblers". Nothing even approaching proof has arrived.

The one guy that claimed he had previously proven it ended up getting banned for using two accounts to agree with himself and thank his own posts. Before that he spent his time insulting me and a few other people in between parroting the SF and ULA slogans and never getting around to reposting his "proof".

The entire no campaign is based on half truths, conspiracy theories and outright lies. Just be honest, you don't want to pay because you'd rather have the 100 bucks in your own arse-pocket.

In fairness Micky, a child in Senior Infants could see the stroke being pulled here. Money being pulled from local authorities to pay off a gambling debt which we do not owe, with the so-called "household charge" being collected in an attempt to substitute it.

So the money does indeed go to foreign gamblers. Those gamblers being the foreign financial institutions which took a massive gamble funding the their Irish equivalents. A private debt between two sets of greedy, incompetent buffoons.

And the taxpayer is supposed to foot the bill - because we're borrowing €400m a week from the same people in order to fund the lifestyles of our Public Sector workers, Civil Servants, and an overly-generous Social Welfare System.

No matter what way it's spun, this is the reality my friend.:(

Ghandee

mickydoomsux wrote: »

I've been asking for days for a reputable link from anyone providing proof that the money from the household charge is going to "foreign gamblers". Nothing even approaching proof has arrived.

Is that proof Micky?

http://www.ipav.ie/documents/Industry/IPAV_holds_meeting_with_Minister_Hogan.pdf