Time to tax wealth - Covid cost Solution

ELM327

We were discussing coronatax, a specific purpose tax. It literally couldnt be any clearer for you.

Also, USC is still here, has not and will not be removed.

FVP3

gary550 wrote: »

How far would a billion go in the publics pocket?

I'll give you a hint, not very.

Still an extra billion though and we are not just taxing one guy. In any case as we go forward and hit pension problems we can either continue to pile the taxations on middle income workers, or try and extend the higher level taxation limit to wealth owners and the very highest earners.

FVP3

ELM327 wrote: »

We were discussing coronatax, a specific purpose tax. It literally couldn't be any clearer for you.

If you want to get your point across clearly you can't rely on other people guessing your context. What you said was both clear, generalised and totally incorrect. if you want to say "taxes ike the coronatax are never reduced" then that is how you phrase it.

Also, USC is still here, has not and will not be removed.

You said "Tax increases are never temporary"

Any reduction in USC would invalidate that point, it doesn't have to be eliminated.

Anyway, you are contributing little or nothing to that debate so ill put you on ignore.

ELM327

FVP3 wrote: »

If you want to get your point across clearly you can't rely on other people guessing your context. What you said was both clear, generalised and totally incorrect. if you want to say "taxes ike the coronatax are never reduced" then that is how you phrase it.



You said "Tax increases are never temporary"

Any reduction in USC would invalidate that point, it doesn't have to be eliminated.

Anyway, you are contributing little or nothing to that debate so ill put you on ignore.

Ah, the old, I have nothing left to add so I'm going to try and take the high ground by mentioning putting me on ignore.
It's not an airport, you don't need to announce your departure, comrade.

seamus

ELM327 wrote: »

Where do you draw the line?
Would he survive on 3 Million as opposed to 4 Million?
Would he survive on 300k as opposed to 400k?

Pick something arbitrary but generous. Like 40 times the average wage.

That's about €1.2m / year. 90% tax on everything above that.

Nobody earns €1.2m a year. They do not create €1.2m in output or €1.2m in benefit to the economy. Likewise, there is absolutely no scenario where someone can earn €1.2m / year and not be considered exceptionally wealthy.

The existence of people who earn hundreds of millions or billions, just goes to show how far off the balance is. This is unearned income. Money that is transferred from poorer people to wealthier people because the wealthier people write the rules about how value is to be transferred.

The guy who earns €1.2m is exceptionally wealthy compared to the general population, can buy virtually anything he wants.

The guy who earns a billion, is earning 1,000 times more than that again. There is no sound basis on which that can be ethically justified.

LuasSimon

It is wrong that someone who earns 60K can pay 30% of all their income in taxs whilst someone Larry Goodman can divert all his income through Luxembourg and pay a far less percentage.

The rich are going to have all the money soon and what was the middle class id disappearing and not much better off than the welfare class who in many instances never worked.

Shefwedfan

seamus wrote: »

Pick something arbitrary but generous. Like 40 times the average wage.

That's about €1.2m / year. 90% tax on everything above that.

Nobody earns €1.2m a year. They do not create €1.2m in output or €1.2m in benefit to the economy. Likewise, there is absolutely no scenario where someone can earn €1.2m / year and not be considered exceptionally wealthy.

The existence of people who earn hundreds of millions or billions, just goes to show how far off the balance is. This is unearned income. Money that is transferred from poorer people to wealthier people because the wealthier people write the rules about how value is to be transferred.

The guy who earns €1.2m is exceptionally wealthy compared to the general population, can buy virtually anything he wants.

The guy who earns a billion, is earning 1,000 times more than that again. There is no sound basis on which that can be ethically justified.

Someone who earns 1.2 million per year can buy virtually anything? I don't think so. One flash car and that is nearly 50% of his/her wages

markodaly

seamus wrote: »

Nobody earns €1.2m a year. They do not create €1.2m in output or €1.2m in benefit to the economy.

To be honest, and I am being generous here, this is just student union psychobabble.

Do you think Michael o'Leary doesn't earn his wage? A guy who grew a business from next to nothing and now employs almost 18,000 people?

His business making decisions has generated hundreds of millions of tax for the government, never mind the billions spent on wages, supplies, maintenance, marketing and so on.

And before people go on about about Ryanair laying off staff, they are arguably the most cash rich and balance sheet sturdy airline not only in Europe, but the world.
They wont be asking for a red cent of anyone's tax money to bail them out, but look across the world and you will see that will not be the case for many airlines.

Mr. teddywinkles

LuasSimon wrote: »

It is wrong that someone who earns 60K can pay 30% of all their income in taxs whilst someone Larry Goodman can divert all his income through Luxembourg and pay a far less percentage.

The rich are going to have all the money soon and what was the middle class id disappearing and not much better off than the welfare class who in many instances never worked.

Hence the ever increasing switch to welfare class. Why bother. Love to know what the really wealthy pay in tax as a percentage total on all incomes and assets compared with average Joe. I'd say Joe pays more.

KyussB

Michael O'Leary is demanding a share of state bailouts - he's just another CEO looking for a handout from the public purse:

The national programmes should be modified so that Ryanair could get a share of the bailout packages by making sure loan guarantees and other perks are available to “all EU airlines in proportion to their share of traffic in a particular country,” Mr O’Leary said in the April 9th letter seen by Bloomberg.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/ryanair-may-legally-challenge-eu-state-bailouts-for-national-carriers-1.4237144

He's just yet another wealthy advocate of Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor.

markodaly

KyussB wrote: »

Michael O'Leary is demanding a share of state bailouts - he's just another CEO looking for a handout from the public purse:

The national programmes should be modified so that Ryanair could get a share of the bailout packages by making sure loan guarantees and other perks are available to “all EU airlines in proportion to their share of traffic in a particular country,” Mr O’Leary said in the April 9th letter seen by Bloomberg.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/ryanair-may-legally-challenge-eu-state-bailouts-for-national-carriers-1.4237144

He's just yet another wealthy advocate of Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the poor.

Ah, nice bit of smoke and mirrors again from you.
If you actually read the piece and not selectively pick a snippet from it, you will see that Ryanair actually want..

Ryanair told Europe’s top competition official that it may go to court to stop France and other countries from “selectively gifting billions of euros to their inefficient flag carriers”.

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive, said in a letter to competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager that the European Union would be “forced into an embarrassing U-turn” on state aid if Ryanair won a legal challenge.

Key word there. INEFFICIENT.

Ryanair run their business very well and as such are perfectly entitled to question why other airlines are getting taxpayers money to keep afloat yet remain inefficient.

I thought you would have loved this KB, he wants to save yours and I hard earned euros from being given to private businesses as a form of a bailout

If the EU and other governments are going to go ahead regardless, then he is only asking for a level playing field, to access the same capital as those other inefficient airlines.

“These are the crack cocaine junkies of the state-aid world because their first instinct is to always go to the government for state aid,” Mr O’Leary said in an interview.

KyussB

So he isn't against bailouts, he's against selective bailouts - so he doesn't just want a bit of money being given to struggling airlines - he wants a huge amount of money given to all airlines.

Bunch of Right-Wing Socialists :pac:

GreeBo

seamus wrote: »

Pick something arbitrary but generous. Like 40 times the average wage.

That's about €1.2m / year. 90% tax on everything above that.

Nobody earns €1.2m a year. They do not create €1.2m in output or €1.2m in benefit to the economy. Likewise, there is absolutely no scenario where someone can earn €1.2m / year and not be considered exceptionally wealthy.
.

I think you are ignorant of how big business works.
The guy being paid €1.2M a year is probably, at a minimum, managing a revenue stream of 50 times that.

90% tax?
I dont even know how to being arguing against that tbh. What do you think that would do for big business is in Ireland?

1st dalkey dalkey

New to this thread, but my first instinct is to ask what you define 'wealth' as and how you would measure it?

Once that is done, would it only apply to personal wealth or would a corporate entity also be deemed wealthy by the same rule and thereby be liable to any proposed 'wealth' tax?

There is a GINI index which measures relative fairness in income and wealth. 0 (zero) being perfectly equal, everyone owning the same, and 1 (one) being completely unequal, everything owned by one person.

In relation to income, Ireland does fairly well on this index, scoring 0.44, about the EU average.

In relation to wealth we do less well, scoring 0.72, much closer to the unequal end of the scale.

So there would appear to be room for more wealth tax, but how to codify it is difficult.

Geuze

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

Can someone tell me this. If it is a free market and the arse fell outa the oil market recently. Why were we still paying nearly the same price at the pump. Honest question.

Much of the retail price of petrol and diesel is fixed.

Fixed excise duty - approx 50c

Fixed VAT on excise

Fixed wholesale and retail margins

Fixed refining crude.

So even if crude oil halves in cost, the retail price will not halve.

Geuze

1st dalkey dalkey wrote: »

New to this thread, but my first instinct is to ask what you define 'wealth' as and how you would measure it?

Once that is done, would it only apply to personal wealth or would a corporate entity also be deemed wealthy by the same rule and thereby be liable to any proposed 'wealth' tax?

It is difficult to measure wealth, especially the value of land and unquoted shares.

As all companies are owned by people, companies would not pay a wealth tax.

The people who own the companies would.

markodaly

KyussB wrote: »

So he isn't against bailouts, he's against selective bailouts - so he doesn't just want a bit of money being given to struggling airlines - he wants a huge amount of money given to all airlines.

Bunch of Right-Wing Socialists :pac:

You make it too easy KB. Maybe MO'L can apply for one of those €1Trillion negative paying loans you mentioned earlier? :pac::pac:

On the point, as you can see MO'L and Ryanair are against bailouts in general, but if European governments are going to go ahead anyway and bailout selected airlines, then Ryanair are saying that they should be entitled to funds aswell.
Its perfectly clear what they are hinting at. Fairness.

Why should a good business with a good efficient business model be disadvantaged when the likes of Air France or KLM, with bloated, inefficient business models be given tax payers money to stay afloat?

You should like him KB, as they are against the thing you hate, but you are too rooted in your ideology to see it.

seamus

markodaly wrote: »

Do you think Michael o'Leary doesn't earn his wage? A guy who grew a business from next to nothing and now employs almost 18,000 people?

His business making decisions has generated hundreds of millions of tax for the government, never mind the billions spent on wages, supplies, maintenance, marketing and so on.

See this is an example of circular logic. O'Leary earns lots of money because he manages lots of money and that deserves lots of money.

A Ryanair pilot flying a 737-200 is responsible for the welfare of a $4m piece of machinery and the lives of 136 people. Using standard calculations, that's a total value of about $140m of wealth that a pilot is responsible for, every minute that the aircraft is in the air. That's not to include the net wealth of the individuals involved nor the additional economic cost of a crash.

If Michael O'Leary dropped dead while at work, Ryanair would motor on without any loss of revenue. All he does is talk business and push numbers around on a screen. He's not special or unique.

If the pilot dropped dead while at work...

So the notion that O'Leary is creating, managing or providing more value is based on nothing. You can use any convenient numbers to justify his worth, but there's no logical or ethical basis for it.

O'Leary earns 100 times the average wage, but he doesn't work 100 times harder than the average worker. And he doesn't provide 100 times the value. All of the value he "manages" is created by the people he manages, not by him.

1st dalkey dalkey

seamus wrote: »

See this is an example of circular logic. O'Leary earns lots of money because he manages lots of money and that deserves lots of money.

A Ryanair pilot flying a 737-200 is responsible for the welfare of a $4m piece of machinery and the lives of 136 people. Using standard calculations, that's a total value of about $140m of wealth that a pilot is responsible for, every minute that the aircraft is in the air. That's not to include the net wealth of the individuals involved nor the additional economic cost of a crash.

If Michael O'Leary dropped dead while at work, Ryanair would motor on without any loss of revenue. All he does is talk business and push numbers around on a screen. He's not special or unique.

If the pilot dropped dead while at work...

So the notion that O'Leary is creating, managing or providing more value is based on nothing. You can use any convenient numbers to justify his worth, but there's no logical or ethical basis for it.

O'Leary earns 100 times the average wage, but he doesn't work 100 times harder than the average worker. And he doesn't provide 100 times the value. All of the value he "manages" is created by the people he manages, not by him.

No, the co-pilot would take over and things would sail on as normal.

I don't like Mikey. Think him a bit of a mouth.
But I will give him one thing, he is tax resident here.
He is not a Branson or O'Brien, heading off with his millions to avoid tax.
That earns him a little leeway in the spouting he does.

KyussB

markodaly wrote: »

You make it too easy KB. Maybe MO'L can apply for one of those €1Trillion negative paying loans you mentioned earlier? :pac::pac:

On the point, as you can see MO'L and Ryanair are against bailouts in general, but if European governments are going to go ahead anyway and bailout selected airlines, then Ryanair are saying that they should be entitled to funds aswell.
Its perfectly clear what they are hinting at. Fairness.

Why should a good business with a good efficient business model be disadvantaged when the likes of Air France or KLM, with bloated, inefficient business models be given tax payers money to stay afloat?

You should like him KB, as they are against the thing you hate, but you are too rooted in your ideology to see it.

The article is very clear: Michael O'Leary is not against bailouts, he is only against selective bailouts.

Michael O'Leary is going to court to try and force the bailout of the entire airline industry.

FVP3

markodaly wrote: »

To be honest, and I am being generous here, this is just student union psychobabble.

Mark you are going to have to learn to argue without insults. Reported.

Do you think Michael o'Leary doesn't earn his wage? A guy who grew a business from next to nothing and now employs almost 18,000 people?

Plenty of CEOs did as much when CEO pay was much lower than it is now. In any case a good percentage of the wealthy just inherited it. And there are CEO's who make millions running businesses into the ground, and financial workers who make millions when they collapse the economy.

Interesting facts here:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/26/18744304/ceo-pay-ratio-disclosure-2018

“Consider that for much of the post–World War II era, paying your CEO a lot of money didn’t make much sense because the government would simply tax it all away. Top marginal tax rates on income were above 90 percent. President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts sent those top rates tumbling, and so a CEO who could negotiate a much bigger salary could also keep a much bigger salary.”

Capital gains tax rates, which tax income earned from stocks, have also plummeted since Reagan’s cuts.

But there is another Reagan-era policy that has contributed to skyrocketing CEO pay: stock buybacks. Corporate executives have spent trillions of dollars buying back their company’s own stocks since the 1980s to temporarily boost its value.

Pre Regan the US economy was doing better despite the tax contraintes on the rich.

The stock buy backs are an example of how to particularly badly formulate a tax policy. A good rule of thumb would be to disallow stock buybacks or tax it, and to encourage that money to be spent of production, preferably in the US or where-ever the corporation is based. Might be more useful than tariffs as it wouldn't cause a trade war.

FVP3

Geuze wrote: »

Much of the retail price of petrol and diesel is fixed.

Fixed excise duty - approx 50c

Fixed VAT on excise

Fixed wholesale and retail margins

Fixed refining crude.

So even if crude oil halves in cost, the retail price will not halve.

That wasnt the question. It goes up immediately at the pumps when oil prices rise significantly but never falls when oil prices fall significantly.

FVP3

markodaly wrote: »

You make it too easy KB. Maybe MO'L can apply for one of those €1Trillion negative paying loans you mentioned earlier? :pac::pac:

Corporations cant get the same terms as governments of course, and KB didnt claim they could. I am sure that Ryanair has issued bonds before.

You should like him KB, as they are against the thing you hate, but you are too rooted in your ideology to see it.

You are the main ideologue here, albeit one with little knowledge about how the bond market, corporate or government , works.

FVP3

1st dalkey dalkey wrote: »

New to this thread, but my first instinct is to ask what you define 'wealth' as and how you would measure it?

Once that is done, would it only apply to personal wealth or would a corporate entity also be deemed wealthy by the same rule and thereby be liable to any proposed 'wealth' tax?

There is a GINI index which measures relative fairness in income and wealth. 0 (zero) being perfectly equal, everyone owning the same, and 1 (one) being completely unequal, everything owned by one person.

In relation to income, Ireland does fairly well on this index, scoring 0.44, about the EU average.

In relation to wealth we do less well, scoring 0.72, much closer to the unequal end of the scale.

So there would appear to be room for more wealth tax, but how to codify it is difficult.

To me wealth is personal wealth, and corporate wealth and assets are rarely liquid anyway. I'd probably exclude houses as well as they have their own separate property ( which is a wealth tax) so its the rest. Income is useless, in many cases the wealthy can reduce their income, or hide it, or just live off capital.

gary550

seamus wrote: »

Pick something arbitrary but generous. Like 40 times the average wage.

That's about €1.2m / year. 90% tax on everything above that.

Nobody earns €1.2m a year. They do not create €1.2m in output or €1.2m in benefit to the economy. Likewise, there is absolutely no scenario where someone can earn €1.2m / year and not be considered exceptionally wealthy.

The existence of people who earn hundreds of millions or billions, just goes to show how far off the balance is. This is unearned income. Money that is transferred from poorer people to wealthier people because the wealthier people write the rules about how value is to be transferred.

The guy who earns €1.2m is exceptionally wealthy compared to the general population, can buy virtually anything he wants.

The guy who earns a billion, is earning 1,000 times more than that again. There is no sound basis on which that can be ethically justified.

Is your output equal to your salary? If you were self employed doing the same job you do now would you earn the same easily? For most people that would be a no, most people's labour have to be part of a system of people & organised in such a way to be actually worth anything near what they get paid now.

If someone bears a risk to start a business & put their financial security on hold to better their life you think that they should be penalised by draconian tax rates because you think it is unethical?

Mr. teddywinkles

gary550 wrote: »

Is your output equal to your salary? If you were self employed doing the same job you do now would you earn the same easily? For most people that would be a no, most people's labour have to be part of a system of people & organised in such a way to be actually worth anything near what they get paid now.

If someone bears a risk to start a business & put their financial security on hold to better their life you think that they should be penalised by draconian tax rates because you think it is unethical?

Financial security ya say. Who has that these days.

GreeBo

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

Financial security ya say. Who has that these days.

many, many people, not just the very wealthy either

GreeBo

seamus wrote: »

See this is an example of circular logic. O'Leary earns lots of money because he manages lots of money and that deserves lots of money.

A Ryanair pilot flying a 737-200 is responsible for the welfare of a $4m piece of machinery and the lives of 136 people. Using standard calculations, that's a total value of about $140m of wealth that a pilot is responsible for, every minute that the aircraft is in the air. That's not to include the net wealth of the individuals involved nor the additional economic cost of a crash.

If Michael O'Leary dropped dead while at work, Ryanair would motor on without any loss of revenue. All he does is talk business and push numbers around on a screen. He's not special or unique.

If the pilot dropped dead while at work...

So the notion that O'Leary is creating, managing or providing more value is based on nothing. You can use any convenient numbers to justify his worth, but there's no logical or ethical basis for it.

O'Leary earns 100 times the average wage, but he doesn't work 100 times harder than the average worker. And he doesn't provide 100 times the value. All of the value he "manages" is created by the people he manages, not by him.

If this nonsense was true, why is any company paying any executive more than minimum wage?
If your answer involves cliques, cartels or old boy networks we are done here, fair warning.

Shefwedfan

1st dalkey dalkey wrote: »

New to this thread, but my first instinct is to ask what you define 'wealth' as and how you would measure it?

Once that is done, would it only apply to personal wealth or would a corporate entity also be deemed wealthy by the same rule and thereby be liable to any proposed 'wealth' tax?

There is a GINI index which measures relative fairness in income and wealth. 0 (zero) being perfectly equal, everyone owning the same, and 1 (one) being completely unequal, everything owned by one person.

In relation to income, Ireland does fairly well on this index, scoring 0.44, about the EU average.

In relation to wealth we do less well, scoring 0.72, much closer to the unequal end of the scale.

So there would appear to be room for more wealth tax, but how to codify it is difficult.

For a good few on here wealthy just means anyone that earns more than they do...not that an Irish person who ever begrudge someone doing a bit better than they are.......

1st dalkey dalkey

Shefwedfan wrote: »

For a good few on here wealthy just means anyone that earns more than they do...not that an Irish person who ever begrudge someone doing a bit better than they are.......

I get that everyone wants someone else to pay, that's understandable enough.

But there clearly is huge wealth disparity and according to the GINI index, room for more wealth taxes.

So how do we define 'the wealthy' and what is included in the term 'wealth'? Then how do we spread the new burden between them? Maybe break them down into degrees of wealth with the top crew paying more.

One poster suggested 100 times the minimum wage. But that measure relates to income rather then wealth.

The press occasionally publish lists of 'Irelands Richest', but they are not very accurate and often relate to families or groups rather then individuals.

So the problem remains. How do we define wealth. When does one become wealthy and liable to this new tax?