The 350 a week was a catastrophic and costly mistake

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/covid-payment-frauduncovered-at-checkpoints-39284227.html

Fifth of motorists stopped at checkpoint on border suspected of improperly claiming covid payment

NIMAN

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/covid-payment-frauduncovered-at-checkpoints-39284227.html

Fifth of motorists stopped on border suspected of improperly claiming covid payment

I assume it means they were working in the North?

Meeoow

NIMAN wrote: »

I assume it means they were working in the North?

If they were working in North, living in south and out of work due to covid, they are entitled to it.
They probably working in South, and living in North, and laid off due to covid.

Bubbaclaus

RandomViewer wrote: »

First 15k has no Paye ,15500 to 35500 is 20%, so that's roughly 4k, USC say 350 and PRSI be generous and say a grand, so how is he right ?

So you are assuming they will earn literally 0 income outside of this temporary period with 350 a week? As I said, anyone earning over 35k this year outside of the PUP/WSS will have a 44.5% tax liability to pay back on the 350 a week at some point.

doc22

Meeoow wrote: »

If they were working in North, living in south and out of work due to covid, they are entitled to it.
They probably working in South, and living in North, and laid off due to covid.

I'm pretty sure they would be living in the south and more than likely driving to work in the north and hence they wouldn't be entitled to the payment:P.

If living in north and getting the payment you wouldn't have to come south anyway

I'd love to know the validation they do or planning to do on payments

Scoundrel

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Don't normally read this thread so apologies if it's been mentioned previously but I had a phone interview today with the CSO as part of a labour workforce survey (think I'm on a panel or something) gauging the effect of the crisis on workers. Was shooting the breeze with her afterwards and asked what results were standing out to her (as someone interviewing people all day every day). Her answer was that she was coming across loads of people who were better off with the €350 payment and were quite happy - she described lots of interviewees being in situations where both members of a couple (husband, wife, etc) were on €700 per week between them which was more than they had working, no commuting costs, co childcare costs - they were as she put it "like pigs in ****" and very happy for the situation to continue as long as possible.

Another damning indictment of employers in this country and the terrible poverty wages they are getting away with paying.

Tea drinker

Scoundrel wrote: »

Another damning indictment of employers in this country and the terrible poverty wages they are getting away with paying.

But it's not cut and dry.... if you want better wages develop better skills.
And it does call into question the future covid payments. Who wants to fund that lifestyle choice going forward?

Fred Cryton

Fred Cryton wrote: »

No other country made people better off on welfare than when they had been working. 500,000 people are now better off taking the 350 and sitting on their backsides than they had been before this crisis when working. It's going to be enormously difficult to get these people back into the workforce now. Any politician trying to reduce the payment to incentivise work will be branded a right wing thatcherite by the usual suspects.



Who's going to go back to a minimum wage job 20 hours a week when they can earn nearly double that from the taxpayer while not having to work? This will starve businesses of much needed workers just when they need to get back going.



The costs to the exchequer are enormous. We could build a new hospital every month with the amount of money this is costing the state. Did anyone think of this? We have Regina Doherty, mother goose of the nation herself, to thank for this mess.


The key question is WHY IS IRELAND DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY TO OTHER NATIONS?. When you have to ask this question, you know we've c**ked up.

As the lockdown is easing, Revenue have started reviewing and investigating claims.

doc22

Deleted User wrote: »

As the lockdown is easing, Revenue have started reviewing and investigating claims.

Why would revenue be investigating a DEASP payments? they have there own worries with TWSS.

doc22

doc22 wrote: »

Why would revenue be investigating a DEASP payments? they have there own worries with TWSS.

For income tax purposes.

doc22

Deleted User wrote: »

For income tax purposes.

Not much "investigating" DEASP state it was paid and Revenue apply the tax

1123heavy

I see the 350EU payment scheme has been altered in the last 3 days to reflect more what people were getting before the crisis, but it is still overpaying lots of people by quite some margin.

If you were on 201EU a week before the crisis you are STILL entitled to 350EU a week, a 149EU markup.

Why? Can we afford this? We know who is paying. Is it really that difficult to limit payments to what people were getting before the crisis up to a max of 350EU a week? This is typical common sense not being applied once again and it's us high rate tax payers who are footing the bill and getting significantly less than what our earnings were before this crisis.

I am getting paid the exact same as somebody who previously earned 201EU before the crisis, but my input and that person's input into the system were NOT equal. Is this fair?

Danzy

1123heavy wrote: »

I see the 350EU payment scheme has been altered in the last 3 days to reflect more what people were getting before the crisis, but it is still overpaying lots of people by quite some margin.

If you were on 201EU a week before the crisis you are STILL entitled to 350EU a week, a 149EU markup.

Why? Can we afford this? We know who is paying. Is it really that difficult to limit payments to what people were getting before the crisis up to a max of 350EU a week? This is typical common sense not being applied once again and it's us high rate tax payers who are footing the bill and getting significantly less than what our earnings were before this crisis.

I am getting paid the exact same as somebody who previously earned 201EU before the crisis, but my input and that person's input into the system were NOT equal. Is this fair?

What you are proposing is not common sense but economic suicide. It's why no one in business or economics or politics entertains it.

Their goal is have good growth and low unemployment, so obe can see how they are doing the opposite to your suggestions. That can mean things are often "iz snot fair".

I'm not on da pandemic and am self employed.

1123heavy

Danzy wrote: »

What you are proposing is not common sense but economic suicide. It's why no one in business or economics or politics entertains it.

Their goal is have good growth and low unemployment, so obe can see how they are doing the opposite to your suggestions. That can mean things are often "iz snot fair".

I'm not on da pandemic and am self employed.

How exactly is paying people more than what they were on (at the expense of the treasury) before the crisis a good thing for the state? If people survived on the money before the crisis they can survive on it now (especially after 3 months of getting paid significantly more than their regular earnings).

It is economic suicide to be paying people a welfare payment that gives them more than they got in employment, not the other way around.

The employment comment is strange, if you are continuing to get 150EU a week more than you do going back into employment then why would you seek to go back? There are already infinite stories of people refusing to go back to work because they get paid more on the COVID payment.

RandomViewer

Tea drinker wrote: »

But it's not cut and dry.... if you want better wages develop better skills.
And it does call into question the future covid payments. Who wants to fund that lifestyle choice going forward?

Opposite actually occurs, the more people qualified for a job the less it's worth and society still needs all the **** jobs doing. Think everyone should have to do at least a year on minimum wage to give them some perspective

1123heavy

RandomViewer wrote: »

Opposite actually occurs, the more people qualified for a job the less it's worth and society still needs all the **** jobs doing. Think everyone should have to do at least a year on minimum wage to give them some perspective

Since the beginning of time there have been the advanced, the mediocre and the below average. There won't be a shortage of people for minimum wage jobs. It's one of the facts of life, along with death and taxes.

One thing we suffer from in Ireland though is people thinking that because they've done a degree in golf management that they are somehow in the advanced category, when the reality is they are only truly skilled for a minimum wage job.

Dempo1

Just came across this thread, I wondered what the OP thinks about the TWSS? The scheme that in many cases permits businesses to remain closed and yet pay their employees up to €2800 pm. The extraordinary thing being some I know have been as much as told if scheme end redundancy will be offered WTF is that.

Furthermore, businesses that have reopened, trading normally are also availing of this little nugget. (I GET THE LOSSES, EXPENSES DURING LOCKDOWN) there separate issues with grants, restart loans etc.

PUP recipients had to claim on there own, with little or no choice. Whilst I accept there are massive costs involved, I wondered what's worse, support individuals who've actually been laid off temporarily or subsidise businesses

A. Who've little chance of reopening and continue to claim TWSS for employees
B. Taxpayer subsidised payroll for businesses trading normally again

An Ri rua

Dempo1 wrote: »

Just came across this thread, I wondered what the OP thinks about the TWSS? The scheme that in many cases permits businesses to remain closed and yet pay their employees up to €2800 pm. The extraordinary thing being some I know have been as much as told if scheme end redundancy will be offered WTF is that.

Furthermore, businesses that have reopened, trading normally are also availing of this little nugget. (I GET THE LOSSES, EXPENSES DURING LOCKDOWN) there separate issues with grants, restart loans etc.

PUP recipients had to claim on there own, with little or no choice. Whilst I accept there are massive costs involved, I wondered what's worse, support individuals who've actually been laid off temporarily or subsidise businesses

A. Who've little chance of reopening and continue to claim TWSS for employees
B. Taxpayer subsidised payroll for businesses trading normally again

Surely the TWSS will be picked up as clashing with real time PAYE reporting?
PUP recipients have recently had to self declare their continuing eligibility. Surely similar for TWSS?

Dempo1

An Ri rua wrote: »

Surely the TWSS will be picked up as clashing with real time PAYE reporting?
PUP recipients have recently had to self declare their continuing eligibility. Surely similar for TWSS?

No, TWSS required no such eligibility check

Regarding paye reporting, basically once companies are eligible, they submitted weekly payroll, this is regardless of whether the business is actually open. Bizarrely, and I've checked, employees can still be laid off. It's an extraordinary state of affairs. I don't begrudge anyone a payment but surely if a business is closed, not trading, employees should have had to claim PUP, Equally if a business is back trading and normally TWSS should cease. The catch of course is all you have to show is revenues down 25%, the problem of course being, when was it down, during lockdown or now. I do suspect there will be a serious review of the TWSS next week, PUP is likely to end on 10th of August. The government seems hell bent end pup whilst encouraging people onto TWSS????? Just bizzare

IQO

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0710/1152515-france-coronavirus/

I wonder if similar investigations are being done here, and if/when we will hear about it.

Dempo1

IQO wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0710/1152515-france-coronavirus/

I wonder if similar investigations are being done here, and if/when we will hear about it.

O, I've no doubt of it. As an aside, enormous numbers of Self employed PUP recipients reporting they've been moved to the lower rate of €203 per week, despite submitting returns for the year that was being used for assessment 2018. Some saying the help line stating all self employed reduced whilst records checked, not sure if this is correct but if it is, some advanced notice would have been reasonable to expect

RandomViewer

An Ri rua wrote: »

Surely the TWSS will be picked up as clashing with real time PAYE reporting?
PUP recipients have recently had to self declare their continuing eligibility. Surely similar for TWSS?

No tax being charged, I'm on subsidy plus top up, haven't any Paye or PRSI since April, pushing everyone to take holidays before the subsidy ends