Irish water - Would you pay if...

OU812

Personally I've more of a problem with property tax than water cost as I already paid stamp duty of about €18k on the house, but it's a charge against the property & I have to pay it. I also don't have a meter and am not paying over the odds for something...

Would you pay if the VAT rate was reduced by 2% - which it was increased by to cover the cost of not having a utility in the first place?

Deedsie

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

No issue with Irish water. I agree with a single utility to oversee water management. I just object to the way it was set up. Such unecessary waste. Bonus culture etc

I hope what ever government we end up with cancels the water charges but keeps Irish water in place with some alterations to how it is run. I voted I will never pay in the poll but I would pay eventually if Irish water was ran more efficiently.

Agent_47

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

OU812 wrote: »

Personally I've more of a problem with property tax than water cost as I already paid stamp duty of about €18k on the house, but it's a charge against the property & I have to pay it. I also don't have a meter and am not paying over the odds for something...

Would you pay if the VAT rate was reduced by 2% - which it was increased by to cover the cost of not having a utility in the first place?

My sentiments exactly, FG brought in two taxes on breathing, LPT and the water charges. We already paid stamp duty ad we pay for water through a large chunk of motor tax, i.e other taxes. We are taxed to the hilt.

Zebra3

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

FG are a right wing party who are committed to the EU's policy of privitisation.

Get IW set up and what for the state's next financial disaster, and then lo and behold how will we pay off our debts? :rolleyes:

This is why IW is being set up, nothing to do with improving services.

Can pay, already do pay through general taxation.

Spanish Eyes

Alan Kelly signed a commencement order to ensure that Water charges are paid on selling a house on or after 1.1.2016.

Just like LPT so. Just to mention that, it seems to have gone under the radar.

Sam Russell

Mod: Moved from Infrastructure.

newacc2015

The whole point of the water charges was that the water would be ring fenced to IW. If there another recession (which will happen), that IW would still have the same revenue coming in. Where as if it was to go to general revenue, there is the risk of Government deciding to build a new motorway or hospital instead of fixing our rotten water system.

I personally want polluter pays for water. Look how with the bin charges a lot of households went from 2 black bins a week to a black bin every 2 weeks. Reducing VAT wont stop people watering their lawns in a dry summer or running taps in a cold snap

thadg

It's our civic duty to pay the government as much tax as possible.

they should have either added 100 euro a year onto property tax for water charges or else very house/property to pay 100 euro ayear water charges and have no meters.

they would have made more money and there wouldn't have been half the controversy

the lifetime of each water meter is 8-10 years so these things are going to cost the tax payer a fortune from 2020 onwards

they really didn't think it through

ted1

I've no problem with water charges. The use pays is the fairest form of taxation, getting rid of charges will just result in the middle class once again picking up the tab fur others. Id rather more focus be put on the unjust USC.

I'm lucky I bought on 2012 at the bottom of the market so stamp duty was only 2k and property tax is relative low


Also the LPT should be paid by tenants as in other countries, in no way should wate charges be added to LPT unless the tenants are made pay , after all they are using the local services

Suryavarman

Agent_47 wrote: »

My sentiments exactly, FG brought in two taxes on breathing, LPT and the water charges. We already paid stamp duty ad we pay for water through a large chunk of motor tax, i.e other taxes. We are taxed to the hilt.

Water isn't paid for through motor tax. Water is now paid for through water charges. Water might formerly have been paid for through motor tax but that is no longer the case. The Government was running a huge deficit, noticed that our former system of providing water was a shambles and decided to set up Irish Water and implement charges.

ted1

Suryavarman wrote: »

Water isn't paid for through motor tax. Water is now paid for through water charges. Water might formerly have been paid for through motor tax but that is no longer the case. The Government was running a huge deficit, noticed that our former system of providing water was a shambles and decided to set up Irish Water and implement charges.

Also it's fairly obvious that our water system was very under funded , hence the problems with leaks and contamination. IW are doing good with regards improving water quality and waste.

Sam Russell

They are certainly experts on waste - particularly of money.

ted1

Sam Russell wrote: »

They are certainly experts on waste - particularly of money.

Sure they over spent in consultation but since then they are not to bad

Sam Russell

ted1 wrote: »

Sure they over spent in consultation but since then they are not to bad

Bord Gais got the gig to mother IW, but instead of a cut and paste job for all the legals they spent 140 million on legal consultants. They spent 500m on water meters.

They still leak 50% of the water into the ground.

Where are they not so bad?

ted1

Sam Russell wrote: »

Bord Gais got the gig to mother IW, but instead of a cut and paste job for all the legals they spent 140 million on legal consultants. They spent 500m on water meters.

They still leak 50% of the water into the ground.

Where are they not so bad?

You can't manage what you don't measure... The money spent on meters was needed. Perhaps it would have been cheaper if the guys were allowed get about their work.
They can use the meters to identify leaks. You really can't just copy and paste.
It's a one off cost, it's gone and as % of the overall spend its small.
Some leaks gave being fixed , all the mains around us were upgraded. Several rural communities have had WWTP projects completed and the quality has improved.

micosoft

Sam Russell wrote: »

Bord Gais got the gig to mother IW, but instead of a cut and paste job for all the legals they spent 140 million on legal consultants. They spent 500m on water meters.

They still leak 50% of the water into the ground.

Where are they not so bad?

Quite the expert on legal fees. Do you have any actual evidence that the one time legal costs of the takeover of the LA's water property was excessive? Do you think consolidating the vast amount of property from multiple local authorities is a trivial piece of work that is a cut and paste job? If you have an issue with the general cost of the legal transactions in this country that is a different topic and can't be placed at IW's door. Interesting one of the few politicians who attempted to do something about that got voted out by the electorate.

Water metering is standard in pretty much every other jurisdiction. Do you suggest that the ESB and Bord Gais wasted money on metering electricity and gas?

Less then 50%. And less every year since being founded. We can expect that to reverse now that we defund water services for whatever populist demands the Healy Raes et all will want in return for their support.

The lie that IW was egregiously less efficient then any other similar effort seems to be taking root because the populist front have done well.... it still does not change the actual facts. It will be interesting in 20 years to look back at what happened here.

Suryavarman

Sam Russell wrote: »

Bord Gais got the gig to mother IW, but instead of a cut and paste job for all the legals they spent 140 million on legal consultants. They spent 500m on water meters.

They still leak 50% of the water into the ground.

Where are they not so bad?

How much money should they have spent on water meters?

How much water was being leaked before Irish Water was set up? To what level should water leakage have been reduced by now?

johnnyskeleton

Agent_47 wrote: »

we pay for water through a large chunk of motor tax, i.e other taxes. We are taxed to the hilt.

I really dislike this false logic. Some motor tax money used to go to pay for water. The government realised this was wrong because some people with no cars werent paying, some people with private schemes were paying twice and we had an underfunded water scheme which took a chunk out of money thats supposed to be used to fix potholes.

So they fixed this system. Suggesting that we are already paying is a fallacy since only some people were paying less than enough to have a fully functional system.

Chips Lovell

The only way a VAT decrease would make sense would be if we were running a budget surplus and didn't need the additional revenue. We quite clearly do need it.

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I really dislike this false logic. Some motor tax money used to go to pay for water. The government realised this was wrong because some people with no cars werent paying, some people with private schemes were paying twice and we had an underfunded water scheme which took a chunk out of money thats supposed to be used to fix potholes.

So they fixed this system. Suggesting that we are already paying is a fallacy since only some people were paying less than enough to have a fully functional system.

Where did they say they have stopped this? I believe that nearly €500 million was siphoned away from the LA to IW as well, so the Property Tax has also being used to prop up IW.

johnnyskeleton

gandalf wrote: »

Where did they say they have stopped this? I believe that nearly €500 million was siphoned away from the LA to IW as well, so the Property Tax has also being used to prop up IW.

Yeah, because so many people are refusing to pay. If theyre not paying irish water theyre probably not paying property tax or motor tax either. Socialism in 21st century Ireland is someone else pays and we resent them for it!

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Yeah, because so many people are refusing to pay. If theyre not paying irish water theyre probably not paying property tax or motor tax either. Socialism in 21st century Ireland is someone else pays and we resent them for it!

So Motor tax is still being used to fund IW.

I pay property tax and I pay motor tax but I am not paying Water charges because they are already being funded from other taxes, I also disagree totally with the way the entity was setup and with the fact that over a billion was pissed away when in reality it would have made more sense to fix the major problems first before going at the taxpayer again. At least then they could have said "we have made progress but to continue this we need your help."

I am not paying as a point of principle because Irish Waters setup was completely and utterly botched, I do think that down the line the charges are going to ramp up by a multiple of 3 or 4 times the current charges and I do believe the original idea was to be able to sell the entity off privately.

Now if you happy with funding a lame duck organisation that will hardly cover its costs with full compliance at the current charge level then fair enough. Personally I believe the whole project needs to go back to the drawing board.

frankbrett

OU812 wrote: »

Personally I've more of a problem with property tax than water cost as I already paid stamp duty of about €18k on the house, but it's a charge against the property & I have to pay it. I also don't have a meter and am not paying over the odds for something...

Would you pay if the VAT rate was reduced by 2% - which it was increased by to cover the cost of not having a utility in the first place?

VAT was not increased by 2% to cover the cost of water either time charges were shelved (1977 and 1994)

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/rates/current-historic-rates-vat.html

Godge

frankbrett wrote: »

VAT was not increased by 2% to cover the cost of water either time charges were shelved (1977 and 1994)

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/rates/current-historic-rates-vat.html

That is the problem when people give more credence to facebook rants about water than the actual facts.

oscarBravo

gandalf wrote: »

...I am not paying Water charges because they are already being funded from other taxes...

I don't get this, I really don't.

Water charges are being introduced in order to move the funding of water services from general taxation. On that basis, your argument reduces to: "I disagree with moving the funding of water from general taxation to direct billing because I'm already paying for it through general taxation."

When you look at it that way, the argument is tautological and pointless.

As for your other arguments, that the setting up of the utility was shambolic and wasteful, and therefore it should be scrapped and replaced with something else: basically, that's an argument that we wasted a lot of money on something, therefore we should abandon it and spend less money setting up a replacement.

Now, if you can demonstrate that the ultimate cost of scrapping Irish Water and setting up a completely new entity from scratch is less than the cost of fixing the problems in IW, fair enough - but I don't think I've seen anyone even attempt to make that case.

Speedwell

How about "the VAT and my water bills are two utterly disconnected issues"? I pay my water bill under protest because I don't want to do anything to jeopardise my eventual application for citizenship (who knows if it's even an issue, to be honest). But I think that lowering the VAT and expecting anything pleasant to happen to the prices we pay in the shops is foolish.

flutered

newacc2015 wrote: »

The whole point of the water charges was that the water would be ring fenced to IW. If there another recession (which will happen), that IW would still have the same revenue coming in. Where as if it was to go to general revenue, there is the risk of Government deciding to build a new motorway or hospital instead of fixing our rotten water system.

I personally want polluter pays for water. Look how with the bin charges a lot of households went from 2 black bins a week to a black bin every 2 weeks. Reducing VAT wont stop people watering their lawns in a dry summer or running taps in a cold snap

how much are the la's out of pocket due to iw, they need money urgently, their income from water and lpt has dissapeared into the quango with a bonus culture called iw

flutered

any organisation which claims it will take 50 years to reach its target, has to be viewed with amazement and utter distrust

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

So Oscar basically your position is that we have pissed a mass of cash down the drain on a tainted and flawed organisation let's keep pissing money away cause it's already set up. You see I can't understand that mentality myself?

Also given IW with the current charge regime at 100% payment is just barely covering it's running cost it is of course going to continue to suck away revenue from income, motor and property tax. Until they increase the costs to the real levels they want.

oscarBravo

gandalf wrote: »

So Oscar basically your position is that we have pissed a mass of cash down the drain on a tainted and flawed organisation let's keep pissing money away cause it's already set up. You see I can't understand that mentality myself?

No, and you've confirmed the point I made in the last line of my previous post.

I didn't say that we should "keep pissing money away", I said that if there are problems with Irish Water, we should fix them. The idea that you can refuse to pay your bills because you don't like the company you're paying is, frankly, ridiculous.

Once again: if you can demonstrate that it would be cheaper to throw away Irish Water and replace it with a different utility than to fix its problems, please do so.

Also given IW with the current charge regime at 100% payment is just barely covering it's running cost it is of course going to continue to suck away revenue from income, motor and property tax. Until they increase the costs to the real levels they want.

Again, this is self-evident. The bills don't represent the real cost of providing water. Those real costs still need to be met, so if they're not coming from the consumer, they'll come from general taxation. As the bills increase to meet the cost of provision, the requirement to subsidise them from general taxation will decrease.

If you don't want Irish Water to "suck away revenue", pay your bill.

Chips Lovell

flutered wrote: »

any organisation which claims it will take 50 years to reach its target, has to be viewed with amazement and utter distrust

What is the time frame you think it should do it in, given its current level of funding?

If it can't be done earlier with current funding, how much more would you be willing to pay for water to hit the target earlier?

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

So again Oscar you conceed that the real cost of IW eventually needs to be recovered. That means the real water charge is going to be a multiple of the current one. Looking at the figures involved at least a multiple of four times the current amount. Now if we knew for certain that the donor taxes which we are chasrged were going to drop by a reciprocal amount that would be more palatable but I think we are both long in the tooth enough to realise that isn't the case.

IW is not going to fix our problems, all that has been done is adding another tainted level of bureaucracy that is siphoning away revenue from the real problem. It is a super quango delivered by a government that said they were going to abolish such beasts.

Chips Lovell

gandalf wrote: »

That means the real water charge is going to be a multiple of the current one. Looking at the figures involved at least a multiple of four times the current amount.

I certainly hope they will be at some point. At the moment we've just got token water charges because the government bottled it in the face of resistance.

oscarBravo

gandalf wrote: »

So again Oscar you conceed that the real cost of IW eventually needs to be recovered.

Of course.

That means the real water charge is going to be a multiple of the current one.

Of course.

Looking at the figures involved at least a multiple of four times the current amount. Now if we knew for certain that the donor taxes which we are chasrged were going to drop by a reciprocal amount that would be more palatable but I think we are both long in the tooth enough to realise that isn't the case.

Taxes go up, taxes go down. What's absolutely clear is that when the full cost of providing water is paid for through water bills, not one red cent of tax revenue will be spent on providing water. That's the bullet in the head of the "paying twice" argument.

Maybe taxes won't go down by the amount of water bills. What's absolutely certain is that each individual household's taxes won't go down by precisely the amount of that household's water bills, because that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

If taxes in general don't reduce by the aggregate amount of water bills, then there will be more tax revenue to spend on police and hospitals and all that good stuff.

IW is not going to fix our problems, all that has been done is adding another tainted level of bureaucracy that is siphoning away revenue from the real problem. It is a super quango delivered by a government that said they were going to abolish such beasts.

It's a water utility. There was much that was shambolic about its setting up - largely, it has to be said, in a panicked response to an utterly irrational public response - but at the end of the day it's a water utility, and the rhetoric around it (super quango? seriously?) only makes it impossible to have a reasoned discussion on the topic.

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

So in reality we are talking about bills in the region of €1040 - €1300 per annum going forward then Oscar. That would be fair to assume.

oscarBravo

gandalf wrote: »

So in reality we are talking about bills in the region of €1040 - €1300 per annum going forward then Oscar. That would be fair to assume.

We're talking about covering the cost of providing water to your premises. If you think that the amount billed to the consumer should be less than the cost of providing the water, can you explain why?

Do you think your electricity bill should be less than the price of providing you with electricity?

gandalf

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

oscarBravo wrote: »

We're talking about covering the cost of providing water to your premises. If you think that the amount billed to the consumer should be less than the cost of providing the water, can you explain why?

Do you think your electricity bill should be less than the price of providing you with electricity?

If the donor taxes are reduced to a reciprocal value. But as you have already stated that is never going to happen. So no I don't think we should be taxed any more. And it is a tax and not a charge at least with charges you tend to have a choice of provider. This we don't have.

Niemoj

I pay already & a reduction of VAT would be welcome

Got a bill in the post today for €260, it will go unpaid like the rest of them.

Feck Irish Water, shower of fools.

Geuze

Agent_47 wrote: »

We are taxed to the hilt.

While people may think this, it is incorrect.

Our taxes are about average, maybe a bit below average, compared to other countries.

Our PRSI is very low at 4%, compared to 11% in UK, 20% in Germany, and more elsewhere.

My parents pay under 10% direct taxes on about 50k, and receive:

• two med cards
• two travel passes
• free TV licence
• subsidised elec, 35 pm

So they pay very low direct tax, yet receive generous benefits.

Geuze

Zebra3 wrote: »

Can pay, already do pay through general taxation.

Yes, correct, we already do pay for water via general taxation.

But not enough, given that we have had fiscal deficits of billions each year recently.

Geuze

Suryavarman wrote: »

Water isn't paid for through motor tax. Water is now paid for through water charges. Water might formerly have been paid for through motor tax but that is no longer the case. The Government was running a huge deficit, noticed that our former system of providing water was a shambles and decided to set up Irish Water and implement charges.

In a sense, some of motor tax does go to IW.

All LPT and all motor tax is paid into the LGF, Local Govt Fund.

The LGF makes grants to local councils.

So all your LPT and motor tax goes to local councils, yes.

In the past some of the grants were used by councils to run water services.

Now councils get less grants, but the LGF pays a subvention to IW, to help pay for water services.

So when you hear that water is still partly paid for by taxation, this is what is meant - the LGF make a 439m subvention to IW.

The IW charges are not enough to cover the costs of all 1,000+ water plants.


http://www.environ.ie/sites/default/files/publications/files/local_government_fund_accounts_2014_-_english.pdf

Geuze

gandalf wrote: »

Where did they say they have stopped this? I believe that nearly €500 million was siphoned away from the LA to IW as well, so the Property Tax has also being used to prop up IW.

2014 data

Motor tax 1,158m
LPT = 491m

Both go into LGF

LGF makes payments as follows:

general purpose grants to councils = 281m
regional and local roads = 362m
water services, paid to councils = 70m, complicated
subvention to IW = 439m

trixychic

I'm never going to pay it

Like it has been said already.

I don't disagree with the notion of paying for water (many other countries do it and it would do us no harm to become more aware of our wastefulness) but the way it was set up and run is shocking.

I paid my first few bills but not my last 2. The future of water charges is so uncertain.

FreudianSlippers

It's our civic duty to pay the government as much tax as possible.

trixychic wrote: »

Like it has been said already.

I don't disagree with the notion of paying for water (many other countries do it and it would do us no harm to become more aware of our wastefulness) but the way it was set up and run is shocking.

I paid my first few bills but not my last 2. The future of water charges is so uncertain.

Exact same for me. I'm now 2 behind. I will happily pay even if the charges are scrapped going forward and even if they do not refund the money, if they offer those who paid some form of income tax credit!

fliball123

Suryavarman wrote: »

Water isn't paid for through motor tax. Water is now paid for through water charges. Water might formerly have been paid for through motor tax but that is no longer the case. The Government was running a huge deficit, noticed that our former system of providing water was a shambles and decided to set up Irish Water and implement charges.

Sorry thats a nonsense statement we pay more than enough in tax if the government of the day decide to pacify the lefties by blowing 21billion on social welfare, then buy off the unions and look after their own nest egg by paying 18 billion for public sector pay and pensions and then take decision like bailing out banks which is costing billions that is not the tax payers fault. We the tax payer have payed more than enough for water, property tax and for other services like refuge collection and unfortunately trying to ask for people to pay for water again in the most expensive way possible as in perks, high salaries and bonuses was the straw that broke the camels back. So long story short we pay more than enough in general taxation to cover water. case closed , close this thread

fliball123

oscarBravo wrote: »

I don't get this, I really don't.

Water charges are being introduced in order to move the funding of water services from general taxation. On that basis, your argument reduces to: "I disagree with moving the funding of water from general taxation to direct billing because I'm already paying for it through general taxation."

When you look at it that way, the argument is tautological and pointless.

As for your other arguments, that the setting up of the utility was shambolic and wasteful, and therefore it should be scrapped and replaced with something else: basically, that's an argument that we wasted a lot of money on something, therefore we should abandon it and spend less money setting up a replacement.

Now, if you can demonstrate that the ultimate cost of scrapping Irish Water and setting up a completely new entity from scratch is less than the cost of fixing the problems in IW, fair enough - but I don't think I've seen anyone even attempt to make that case.

Once again why should it be moved from general taxation we now get phuck all for our general taxation. We pay a first world rate of tax and get a third world rate of service. The money for water should of been got through driving savings in efficiencys and cutting out waste and fraud in both areas of spend in public sector pay and pensions and welfare, but no politician has the sac to do what is necessary. Asking the same people to pay again was the straw that broke the camels back and there is no way they can get that genie back in the bottle.

fliball123

Geuze wrote: »

While people may think this, it is incorrect.

Our taxes are about average, maybe a bit below average, compared to other countries.

Our PRSI is very low at 4%, compared to 11% in UK, 20% in Germany, and more elsewhere.

My parents pay under 10% direct taxes on about 50k, and receive:

• two med cards
• two travel passes
• free TV licence
• subsidised elec, 35 pm

So they pay very low direct tax, yet receive generous benefits.

How do we compare when all taxes both direct and indirect are taken into account and then compare the level of services we get for in return. Case in point we could only dream of a health care system in either the UK or Germany and yet per capita we pay more for our healthcare than both. Let the penny drop here the money for paying for water should have been gotten through savings in our spend. We pay more than enough in tax when both direct and indirect taxation are taken into account

Suryavarman

fliball123 wrote: »

Sorry thats a nonsense statement we pay more than enough in tax if the government of the day decide to pacify the lefties by blowing 21billion on social welfare, then buy off the unions and look after their own nest egg by paying 18 billion for public sector pay and pensions and then take decision like bailing out banks which is costing billions that is not the tax payers fault. We the tax payer have payed more than enough for water, property tax and for other services like refuge collection and unfortunately trying to ask for people to pay for water again in the most expensive way possible as in perks, high salaries and bonuses was the straw that broke the camels back. So long story short we pay more than enough in general taxation to cover water. case closed , close this thread

The Government is running a deficit so we clearly aren't paying enough tax to cover the cost of everything.

Speedwell

Suryavarman wrote: »

The Government is running a deficit so we clearly aren't paying enough tax to cover the cost of everything.

The cost of wastefulness and corruption shouldn't be a cost taxpayers are obliged to cover.

12Phase

Not to mention in many areas they provide poor service - low pressure issues seem to be a general problem.

trishasaffron

I'd pay if it was metered.....its a limited resource and needs conserving......don't see that as a poll option. Why?