Tax the rich

Monty Burnz

...and watch them leave.

France's richest man has applied for Belgian nationality – as the Socialist government in his home country raises the tax rate to 75 per cent.
The announcement by Bernard Arnault, who is worth a conservative 30 billion pounds, comes after President Francois Hollande admitted that he ‘dislikes the rich’.

I wonder how much tax income France will lose when this guy and thousands of others figure that the government taking three quarters of their earnings is just a bit too much?

Will any of our ULA/SF friends here explain why the same would not happen here under their "tax the rich" proposals? Especially considering that Irish people have even greater mobility than the French, able to work in the US, Canada, NZ, Aus, UK, India etc.

Please not I am not talking about the moral/ideological aspect of this - just the pragmatic view.

phelixoflaherty

Lets tax the wages of sin.

johnnyskeleton

Surely if you are to start the thread on the topic you should do your own research into how much France will lose by this, no? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. But you cantjust assume it is bad without proof and expect that to be sufficient to get a response from others

Monty Burnz

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Surely if you are to start the thread on the topic you should do your own research into how much France will lose by this, no? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. But you cantjust assume it is bad without proof and expect that to be sufficient to get a response from others

I'm not asking how much France will lose, I am asking what makes SF/ULA supporters believe that the wealthy and the educated won't leave here.

Well?

Gumbo

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I'm not asking how much France will lose, I am asking what makes SF/ULA supporters believe that the wealthy and the educated won't leave here.

Well?

we havent got many people in this state paying our taxes thats worth 30Bn i would imagine.

Count Dooku

kceire wrote: »

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I'm not asking how much France will lose, I am asking what makes SF/ULA supporters believe that the wealthy and the educated won't leave here.

Well?

we havent got many people in this state paying our taxes thats worth 30Bn i would imagine.

Everything is relative, top 10% pay 50% of taxes, if they will leave, then poor will have to pay much more

Monty Burnz

kceire wrote: »

we havent got many people in this state paying our taxes thats worth 30Bn i would imagine.

Probably not, but of course that's not what I'm talking about.

Why would the wealthy and high-earners stay here when there are so many other places they could easily live?

KyussBishop

Heh, this is a recurring fallacy which is so weak, that every time it is brought up no bad consequences are stated, just that "they'll leave" with the implication that it's a bad thing; what exact bad events will happen? (and back them up with proof)

We're talking about income tax here, not corporation tax; it's not like an entire company is going to up and leave, causing a large loss of jobs, just one person whose job opening will soon be filled by someone else, causing no loss in tax intake.

Past a certain income bracket, we would mostly be talking about overpaid management/executive positions at large companies as well; these are pretty heavily invested job positions, taking significant time to move up the ladder (and usually easily replaceable), so there aren't exactly going to be similarly paying jobs waiting for them as soon as they move to another country.


The general crux of the fallacy is that the jobs will leave, and there's just no proof of this at all.

Monty Burnz

Is any SF/ULA supporter willing to address the question I am asking, rather than positing other questions they would much prefer I asked?

KyussBishop

Your question is loaded for starters, both in implying that high-earners leaving is a bad thing, and also in implying that anyone who argues against your point of view is supportive of SF/ULA.

If you're not looking to answer questions countering your argument, then this isn't a discussion but is soapboxing instead (I'd nearly call it an attempt at trolling, but you appear to want to be taken seriously; that to me, is part of the defining line between trolling and soapboxing).

ResearchWill

Count Dooku wrote: »

Everything is relative, top 10% pay 50% of taxes, if they will leave, then poor will have to pay much more

I read recently need to find it again, that less than 12,000 people in this state pay 18% of the income tax collected. That scarry.

http://www.ronanlyons.com/2009/07/28/a-little-quiz-on-irelands-income-tax/

Monty Burnz

KyussBishop wrote: »

Your question is loaded for starters, both in implying that high-earners leaving is a bad thing, and also in implying that anyone who argues against your point of view is supportive of SF/ULA.

If you're not looking to answer questions countering your argument, then this isn't a discussion but is soapboxing instead.

You are desperate to move the discussion onto another point - the consequences of wealthy people leaving the country. If you want to start a thread on that, please go ahead.

I am trying to establish whether there is any serious argument can be made that claims that wealthy people would not leave if taxes for the wealthy were substantially increase.

I take it that you have no such argument to make - a simple admission of that would be fine.

ResearchWill

Count Dooku wrote: »

Everything is relative, top 10% pay 50% of taxes, if they will leave, then poor will have to pay much more

Monty Burnz wrote: »

You are desperate to move the discussion onto another point - the consequences of wealthy people leaving the country. If you want to start a thread on that, please go ahead.

I am trying to establish whether there is any serious argument can be made that claims that wealthy people would not leave if taxes for the wealthy were substantially increase.

I take it that you have no such argument to make - a simple admission of that would be fine.

I suppose the answer depends on how each of the wealthy earn their income, if I earn a million a year from a business based in monaco then ya I would prob leave. If on the other hand I earn a million a year working as say a consultant doctor then moving gives me no advantage as its difficult to work in Ireland based in France.

southsiderosie

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Will any of our ULA/SF friends here explain why the same would not happen here under their "tax the rich" proposals? Especially considering that Irish people have even greater mobility than the French, able to work in the US, Canada, NZ, Aus, UK, India etc.

Please not I am not talking about the moral/ideological aspect of this - just the pragmatic view.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I'm not asking how much France will lose, I am asking what makes SF/ULA supporters believe that the wealthy and the educated won't leave here.

Well?

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Is any SF/ULA supporter willing to address the question I am asking, rather than positing other questions they would much prefer I asked?

MOD NOTE:

OP, I think you've asked an interesting question, but why would you expect SF/ULA supporters to engage with you given the tone of these posts? Because to be honest, given these posts, it is hard to tell if you want an honest discussion of tax policy, or are just looking to take potshots at SF/ULA supporters...and the multiple "Well? Well? posts on the first page on this thread are veering into soapboxing territory.

I think it is possible to have a discussion of fiscal policy, and even how some parties view fiscal policy, without badgering people - especially since this thread has not been open for that long.

KyussBishop

Accepting the limited frame of the debate "will some high earners leave?" (even though it's difficult to determine the value of an answer to that, when we appear to be ignoring the consequences), then it's pretty obvious that yes, some will leave.
It could be as little as 0.1% of people affected by the tax increase, but yes some of them will probably leave; there doesn't seem to be a way to quantify how many will, just that 'some' will.

Where to go from there though, when discussing consequences is out of the range of the debate?

Monty Burnz

southsiderosie wrote: »

[
OP, I think you've asked an interesting question, but why would you expect SF/ULA supporters to engage with you given the tone of these posts? Because to be honest, given these posts, it is hard to tell if you want an honest discussion of tax policy, or are just looking to take potshots at SF/ULA supporters...and the multiple "Well? Well? posts on the first page on this thread are veering into soapboxing territory.

The reason for what you characterise as the 'well? well?' posts is that I am interested in discussing a particular point. I clearly outline this in the first post. The first couple of responses immediately (by accident or by design) tried to steer the discussion onto another point and I attempted to steer the discussion back onto the question I am interested in.

I hope that clarifies the position.

kupus

Whats the point in taxing them, they only get their lawyers to find loopholes anyway

End of discussion.

johnnyskeleton

Monty Burnz wrote: »

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Surely if you are to start the thread on the topic you should do your own research into how much France will lose by this, no? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. But you cantjust assume it is bad without proof and expect that to be sufficient to get a response from others

I'm not asking how much France will lose, I am asking what makes SF/ULA supporters believe that the wealthy and the educated won't leave here.

Well?

This is a bit of mad thread. You want someone else to explain why your views are wrong when you've only offered notional evidnce to support your view.

johnnyskeleton

Monty Burnz wrote: »

KyussBishop wrote: »

Your question is loaded for starters, both in implying that high-earners leaving is a bad thing, and also in implying that anyone who argues against your point of view is supportive of SF/ULA.

If you're not looking to answer questions countering your argument, then this isn't a discussion but is soapboxing instead.

You are desperate to move the discussion onto another point - the consequences of wealthy people leaving the country. If you want to start a thread on that, please go ahead.

I am trying to establish whether there is any serious argument can be made that claims that wealthy people would not leave if taxes for the wealthy were substantially increase.

I take it that you have no such argument to make - a simple admission of that would be fine.

where is your analysis that establises that they would leave and under what circumstances? Once you provide that people can put a counterargument if they have one.

Otherwise this thread is alog the lines of "I believe in the flying spaghetti monster, and if noone else can prove that he doesn't exist then I win the thread".

Monty Burnz

KyussBishop wrote: »

Where to go from there though, when discussing consequences is out of the range of the debate?

Basically, I envisioned working through this question one point at a time. The amount of tax income/enterprise lost (or gained :eek:) by such a measure, the number and nature of the people leaving etc. could be debated in other threads.

Monty Burnz

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

This is a bit of mad thread. You want someone else to explain why your views are wrong when you've only offered notional evidnce to support your view.

You might outline which 'view' I have stated in the OP is 'wrong' - you are begging the question here.

ResearchWill

Ok lets assume the info I posted earlier was in fact correct


Ireland’s top 0.5% of earners, the 11,714 people who earned more than €275,000 in a year, paid almost 18% of all income tax, over €2bn in total. Their average tax rate was 27.5%.

Ok now say we increase the average tax rate to 30% thats (god my Maths is crap) I think the extra take would be 181 million open to correction. Then the question is would we lose any of those tax payers now say we use on average 1% of those taxpayers then the loss would be C 22 million in effect we would need to have about 10% of those guys leave to have a negative effect.

oppenheimer1

Tax the rich and it will solve our problems - this is a fallacy perpetuated by the ULA on a somewhat naive electorate. First of all, there are not many high earners in Ireland and the majority of the owners of successful businesses do not pay themselves huge wages. Why would they take more than they need out of their companies when it is taxed at 55%? Most rich leave their wealth sitting in companies or investment vehicles and cannot be touched by income tax law or make investments with it. The only real high cash earners are in the IFSC and they are highly mobile. At the height of the boom less than 1000 people earned over €1m in the entire country. Even if you taxed these people at 100% it would generate an insignificant sum in reality. Theres simply not enough of these people.

The unfortunate and painful reality is that in order to raise significant sums is that you have to raise taxes on the largest co-hort of taxpayers, the middle income earners or business. I'm not saying higher earners should not see an increase in their taxes (they should in the interests of fairness), but the returns talked about by the ULA etc are clearly overstated. Low tax on business has been a cornerstone of our economic policy and is seen as untouchable. The idea of even tampering with it might do more harm than good and we cannot afford to see our major exporters leaving.

KyussBishop

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Basically, I envisioned working through this question one point at a time. The amount of tax income/enterprise lost (or gained :eek:) by such a measure, the number and nature of the people leaving etc. could be debated in other threads.

Okey well I guess that's [/thread] then seeing as we know some high earners will leave; pity we can't talk about the consequences, nothing left to discuss here everyone, move on

Monty Burnz

KyussBishop wrote: »

Okey well I guess that's [/thread] then seeing as we know some high earners will leave; pity we can't talk about the consequences, nothing left to discuss here everyone, move on

I'd allow the question to remain open for a while - there may be some people who would like to think that people will not move, or that a socialist tax regime might attract wealthy people to the country.

Cheerful Spring

The top tier tax rate in Ireland is low compared to what France has. You also presume wealthy people all of them provide employment. They don't. The majority of the wealthy don't have all their money in Ireland, as well. This speculation on my part of course, but that is how the wealthy work.

johnnyskeleton

Monty Burnz wrote: »

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

This is a bit of mad thread. You want someone else to explain why your views are wrong when you've only offered notional evidnce to support your view.

You might outline which 'view' I have stated in the OP is 'wrong' - you are begging the question here.

I'm not sure you're reading my posts. I am expressing no opinion on whether your comments are right or wrong because you haven't presented any real analysis that can be debated.

In any event you have your answer - yes, some people will probably leave and as ResearchWill points out the extent that that can be measured as a good thing or a bad thing depends on how many leave vs the extra income gained. Of course, you don't wantto debate that but you just want someone from the ula to begrudgingly admit that it's possible that rich people will leave so that you "win" the thread.

scheister

this is a question i put a lot of interest in as people as talk about a wealth tax in this country. While the article that was posted earlier makes an interesting point about who pays a bulk of the tax and it appears that it is the middle class. Like most things in tax its not the year that the policy comes in or the years after but 3-5 years down the line when the tax residency rules start to alter the payee status. Id imagine that some people will move tax havens to protect their income such as bono has done in moving to Holland (i think). I for one will be interested to see how the policy in France affects the returns over then next few years. But surely anyone that is looking at the policy and trying to fill the gap in the Irish Finances will see that it is not taxing one group that will do it but burden sharing and taking something off everyone that will do the trick.

Monty Burnz

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

The top tier tax rate in Ireland is low compared to what France has.

Right, but perhaps you don't realise that this means that such a tax rise would be proportionately bigger in Ireland than it is in France. A bigger tax rise would presumably have a bigger effect.

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

You also presume wealthy people all of them provide employment.

I do? Where?

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

They don't. The majority of the wealthy don't have all their money in Ireland, as well. This speculation on my part of course, but that is how the wealthy work.

No, you are certainly right that seriously wealthy people will usually diversify where their wealth is held. But this does not matter if we are talking about income tax.

Monty Burnz

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I'm not sure you're reading my posts. I am expressing no opinion on whether your comments are right or wrong because you haven't presented any real analysis that can be debated.

Am I required to present an analysis? Is that in the charter? Or can I cite examples of what happens elsewhere and ask what would happen in similar circumstances here?

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

In any event you have your answer - yes, some people will probably leave and as ResearchWill points out the extent that that can be measured as a good thing or a bad thing depends on how many leave vs the extra income gained. Of course, you don't wantto debate that but you just want someone from the ula to begrudgingly admit that it's possible that rich people will leave so that you "win" the thread.

I don't know that a thread can be 'won' (perhaps in your mind it can?) but when a consensus emerges on this subject, I'll move onto the next discussion point on this topic and see if we can establish a consensus on that.

Cheerful Spring

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Right, but perhaps you don't realise that this means that such a tax rise would be proportionately bigger in Ireland than it is in France. A bigger tax rise would presumably have a bigger effect.

I do? Where?

No, you are certainly right that seriously wealthy people will usually diversify where their wealth is held. But this does not matter if we are talking about income tax.

If there is no benefit for our country with wealthy people staying or going. Well than why are you so worried? Business owners tend to be well off and i will agree it would not be good to see them leaving this country in a panic. But a slight rise in their tax is not going to cause that much of an effect. I believe that. Business leaders of Irish decent especially there not going to uproot their families because of a slight tax increase and move to another country.

France has a higher tax rate is it very high (75%) I can see why the wealthy people of that country would be upset with it. But its unlikely France has done this without looking at the consequences first. Well i hope they have?

Anyways our high tax rate is 35% i believe way lower. Is not likely there will a jump to the French rate here. And how many French who were wealthy left France before this increase. Be interesting to find out. This will be a model to follow and set what happens over there in the coming months and years.

Monty Burnz

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

If there is no benefit for our country with wealthy people staying or going. Well than why are you so worried? Business owners tend to be well off and i will agree it would not be good to see them leaving this country in a panic. But a slight rise in their tax is not going to cause that much of an effect. I believe that. Business leaders of Irish decent especially there not going to uproot their families because of a slight tax increase and move to another country.

France has a higher tax rate is it very high (75%) I can see why the wealthy people of that country would be upset with it. But its unlikely France has done this without looking at the consequences first. Well i hope they have?

Anyways our high tax rate is 35% i believe way lower. Is not likely there will a jump to the French rate here. And how many French who were wealthy left France before this increase. Be interesting to find out. This will be a model to follow and set what happens over there in the coming months and years.

A couple of points:

1. I am not asking about 'slight' increases in taxes, I'm asking about the consequences of increases on the scale proposed by the ULA and others.
2. Our upper rate of income tax is not 35%, it is 41%.

leincar

I think Monty Burnz asks a very reasonable and cogent question. Unfortunately until tax rises happen we can't possibly have a definitive answer.

However, we can and probably should look at it in the only possible way, which is anecdotal, assumption, presumption and conjecture.

By any measure of wealth I am in the top 1% of income earners in this country. I am not a businessman or Entrepreneur, I work for a multi-national. The first choice I have made is to live in Ireland. I don't have to. I could choose to live here on a part-time basis and pay no income tax in this State. I do it as I belive I have a moral obligation to pay whatever tax code is put in place by the State in which you reside.

Remember in the late 50's in America under a Republican president (Eisenhower) the top rate of personal tax was in and around 90%. There was no mass exodus and I don't believe there will be this time. Further, as income rates rise in the developed world, high net worth individuals will have fewer places in which they can or are willing to put there money.

People who have wealth should and must pay their share. We cannot have a society that is based on low tax for everyone and everything as the State needs to function. Admittedly this State needs an enema in its public service, a kick in the ass to the unions and a slap on the face to those who advocate low tax. The majority of people who work are 'worker bees' who need to know that if circumstances change for the worse a safety net is available to them.

I find the attitude of some wealthy people to be repugnant. The attitude of 'I'm alright Jack' is well and good, but they will be the first people to cry foul when people go after them.

The same is true of the attitude of ULA/Socialist party/ Sinn Fein. It is politics of envy, plain and simple. The majority of people making their way in the world want to do the best they can for their family and themselves. They, whether in a large or small way are engaged in wealth generating for betterment. These people, if they are cleaners to stock brokers all work for a living and are the working class. ULA/Socialist Party/Sinn Fein don't really care about these people. They care more about the shameless classes, who have no interest in getting up and bettering themselves and will quite happily rely on the State for pretty much everything.

I think the majority of wealthy will stay, possibly or probably not out of a sense of morality, but like most people dislike change, and accept life as a fait accomplí.

Now for the part that will make me leave. If any administration bring in a separate wealth tax on assets, I'm gone. I will not countanence a tax on an asset where I have already bought this asset with money earned net of tax. It is pure theft. They can take capital gains tax if I ever sell it, but an annual charge. Nope.

Cheerful Spring

Monty Burnz wrote: »

A couple of points:

1. I am not asking about 'slight' increases in taxes, I'm asking about the consequences of increases on the scale proposed by the ULA and others.
2. Our upper rate of income tax is not 35%, it is 41%.

Still low plus the very rich also get around paying the right amount of tax here because of legal loopholes. The number of wealthy people in Ireland who pay that rate is questionable least to me. But your right 41% is the standard.

What is the scale they propose? I have not been following this story. I just gave an opinion on what was been said in this thread.

ArmaniJeanss

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

What is the scale they propose? I have not been following this story. I just gave an opinion on what was been said in this thread.

For information purposes Sinn Fein propose a third band of 48% on income over €100K, and a 1% yearly tax on all assets over a €1M.

So someone with say a €300K salary, a house worth €1.5M and €500K in their bank account would pay a chunk more (roughly €14K I think) in income tax and also €20K in wealth payments every year.

http://www.sinnfein.ie/taxation-measures

Diarmuid

An article on France's wealth tax http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071501010.html

Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998

OMD

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

For information purposes Sinn Fein propose a third band of 48% on income over €100K, and a 1% yearly tax on all assets over a €1M.

So someone with say a €300K salary, a house worth €1.5M and €500K in their bank account would pay a chunk more (roughly €14K I think) in income tax and also €20K in wealth payments every year.

http://www.sinnfein.ie/taxation-measures

Good info. It may be slightly off topic but they say they would introduce a wealth tax of 1% on all assets in excess of 1 million euro excluding homes under 1.2 million, farms and working assets. They say this will raise €800 million a year. Where does this figure come from? It sounds massive. It means there is 80 billion in basically non-performing assets in ths country. Where are they getting this figure? if I have a home worth 2 million but loans of 2 million do I get taxed?

Icepick

OMD wrote: »

Good info. It may be slightly off topic but they say they would introduce a wealth tax of 1% on all assets in excess of 1 million euro excluding homes under 1.2 million, farms and working assets. They say this will raise €800 million a year. Where does this figure come from? It sounds massive. It means there is 80 billion in basically non-performing assets in ths country. Where are they getting this figure? if I have a home worth 2 million but loans of 2 million do I get taxed?

The SF figures are made up.

ArmaniJeanss

OMD wrote: »

Good info. It may be slightly off topic but they say they would introduce a wealth tax of 1% on all assets in excess of 1 million euro excluding homes under 1.2 million, farms and working assets. They say this will raise €800 million a year. Where does this figure come from? It sounds massive. It means there is 80 billion in basically non-performing assets in ths country. Where are they getting this figure?

As far as I know their figures were proofed by the Department of Finance and accepted as being fundamentally correct (no-one accused them of lying about this so I think we can accept it as correct).
Obviously though many believe (like the OP's premise) there would be a flight of money before such a tax was collected. And the immovable assets, like houses? ; I'd have thought the €2M+ houses would quickly fall in value as demand would surely drop.

OMD wrote: »

if I have a home worth 2 million but loans of 2 million do I get taxed?

I'd be 99% sure that yes you would. The fact that the super-earners like you might have a 3.5x mortgage never seems to be taken into account when we look to 'tax the rich'. We see this attitude in threads were people say that 'no-one in the public service should earn more than €100K, redue everyone to this amount, its still a great salary.' Well if you borrowed sensibly on the basis of your €200K salary then you are life-fcuked overnight.

Good loser

Icepick wrote: »

The SF figures are made up.

I would think so.

We had a 1% wealth tax here in the 1970s. It included land and 'productive assets' as far as I know.

My recollection is that it raised less than £5 m per annum.

Does anybody out there know? Sinn Fein research department?:rolleyes:

RBB reckons it will raise €5 bn to €10 bn per annum.

OMD

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

As far as I know their figures were proofed by the Department of Finance and accepted as being fundamentally correct (no-one accused them of lying about this so I think we can accept it as correct).
Obviously though many believe (like the OP's premise) there would be a flight of money before such a tax was collected. And the immovable assets, like houses? ; I'd have thought the €2M+ houses would quickly fall in value as demand would surely drop.

.

So they are saying, excluding all business, farms and houses under 1.2 million, there is an additional 80 billion of assets worth over a million each! That I'm afraid requires backing up. It sounds so fundamentally wrong. Saying someone in Dept of Finance says there sums are correct is not enough. We need some idea of where this money/asset is.

Markcheese

Screw taxing the rich ( although I would up the minimum tax take on high earners)
Tax rich pensioners.... Punitively if someone is on a high defined benefit pension, or a pension linked to who-ever currently does they're old job... Senior bank officials... Developers/ builders who got huge tax breaks to have protected pension pots....
..... Sliding scale for those drawing pension of say 30/40 grand becoming seriously high for those earning over 100 grand....
You can't easily move a pension pot... And the largesse of the boom is being payed for now by those with big mortgages and kids ....

Geuze

OMD wrote: »

So they are saying, excluding all business, farms and houses under 1.2 million, there is an additional 80 billion of assets worth over a million each! That I'm afraid requires backing up. It sounds so fundamentally wrong. Saying someone in Dept of Finance says there sums are correct is not enough. We need some idea of where this money/asset is.

No problem, the CBI publishes Household Financial wealth stats.

http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/pages/quarterlyfinancialaccountsforirelandq12012.aspx

Household Net Worth is 100,000 per person, or 448 bn in total.

Geuze

Household wealth = 636 bn approx, accroding to the CBI.

This includes property and financial assets.

Household debt = 188.5 bn.

Net worth = 448bn.

Monty Burnz

Geuze wrote: »

No problem, the CBI publishes Household Financial wealth stats.

http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/pages/quarterlyfinancialaccountsforirelandq12012.aspx

Household Net Worth is 100,000 per person, or 448 bn in total.

This 448 bn is composed of:

Household net worth is calculated as the sum of household housing and financial assets minus their liabilities. The Central Bank of Ireland estimate of housing assets is based on the size and value of housing stock. Data on the value of housing is obtained from the CSO’s ‘Residential Property Price Index’ (RPPI).

So it includes property (and SF and ULA are opposed to property taxes) as well as pension funds, life assurance and savings.

Geuze

Households according to Census = 1,654,000

So here are the wealth per houshold figures:

Gross wealth = 384,500

Net wealth = 270,000

OMD

Geuze wrote: »

OMD wrote: »

So they are saying, excluding all business, farms and houses under 1.2 million, there is an additional 80 billion of assets worth over a million each! That I'm afraid requires backing up. It sounds so fundamentally wrong. Saying someone in Dept of Finance says there sums are correct is not enough. We need some idea of where this money/asset is.

No problem, the CBI publishes Household Financial wealth stats.

http://www.centralbank.ie/press-area/press-releases/pages/quarterlyfinancialaccountsforirelandq12012.aspx

Household Net Worth is 100,000 per person, or 448 bn in total.

Still no good I'm afraid. SF are saying assets over 1 million totals 80 billion excluding business assets and houses. Those figures do not show that.

Geuze

Then that is an estimate by SF, and so open to dispute and debate.

I have never seen a breakdown of wealth data into deciles, or into different amounts of wealth.

OMD

Geuze wrote: »

Then that is an estimate by SF, and so open to dispute and debate.

I have never seen a breakdown of wealth data into deciles, or into different amounts of wealth.

Well sinn fein must have it unless of course they are full of crap. Something tells me they might be.

Icepick

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

As far as I know their figures were proofed by the Department of Finance and accepted as being fundamentally correct

source?

mollymosfet

If this was true, then higher tax economies like those in the Nordic model would be faring worse rather than better. Also note that taxes, for example, in the US are at an all time low for the very wealthy, yet it's not helped at all.

Either way allowing the rich to hold the country to ransom if the poor don't bear their burden is pretty ludicrous - there must be a better way.