What Will happen when Generation Rent Retire?

So, you want the state to provide more in the way of services like susidised housing, but you don't actually want to pay for any of it. Would that about sum it up? I never mentioned anything about carers or unemployed. Low earners in Ireland pay very little if any tax.

That article is from 2016 so the number could be more or less now.

In regards to water tax. If you recall after the bailout we were hit with usc, property tax and then water tax.

It was quite clear this was us paying for the bailout.

If you think the water tax would improve anything you be very naive.

Well maybe the banks? Should had paid for the bailout, did you hear the Anglo banks tapes?

The government had 2 options: 1) let the banks collapse, cover the deposits up to 100k, then we are left without a banking system. 2) Bail them out by guaranteeing deposits and taking them into state ownership, wiping out shareholders.

They went with option 2, option 1 would also have been costly. I don't know which would have been better, but they both would have cost a lot. In neither case would we have the banks covering the cost of social welfare when we had 16% unemployment or PS salaries. That was where we ran up the most debt. If we don't run the country well, we don't get to have nice things like high quality subsidised housing (like say Vienna).

From the other article I linked:

"Removing people from the tax net has long been a public policy goal. Back in 2010, for example, 45 per cent of income earners paid no income tax. While the introduction of the USC considerably broadened the tax base, its impact on the low paid has been reduced in recent years by raising the level at which the charge kicks in.

This approach differs from international norms. Ireland imposes a far lower tax burden on the lower paid than other countries do. In Germany, for example, figures from the Irish Tax Institute show that a person on a salary of €18,000 will give up more than €4,700 in income tax. In Ireland a person on that income would lose just €510."

Yet, people expect German level services?

I am merely pointing out that if you want the state to provide more in the way of services, then you need to have people paying more tax. I am not looking for the state to provide more in the way of services like subsidised housing etc. Germany is expensive in terms of housing in most of the major cities, not just in Bavaria, so also Cologne, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Hamburg etc. I just think here the expectations are a bit off. The majority of workers in Ireland are paying feck all in income tax as it is mostly shifted on the higher earners. The level of services reflect what people pay for them.

In Germany you also have a state pension that has depends on what you have contributed to it. Long term unemployed move into the Harz IV system after the insurance part ends, this is not a very comfortable living and encourages people to actually get a job.

Keep believing that you can have all sorts provided by the government and not have to pay towards it. If you look at any European country that has decent services, you will see that everyone is contributing towards it. It really isn't complicated to understand. Have everyone contribute and have the state take a long term view investing in social housing over decades rather than pull people out of the tax net. It is always short term here and the electorate reward it. If anything I am advocating here for something more like the social democracies in Europe. What I am not willing to do is foot the bill for it with even higher taxes while we keep those looking for the services out of the income tax net.

Thanks for the insults. So keep doing what we are doing and expect a different outcome I suppose. Maybe we can keep all the good bits like low tax AND have a Finnish education system, Viennese social housing and a Dutch health system. It makes perfect sense!

The average worker is an abstract idea. The distribution of income taxation is very different to other European countries. The lower paid here pay far less than in other European countries, the higher paid start paying the highest rate of tax at a much lower level. I assume the plan will be to fund all this by pushing this even further, bring in even higher tax at the upper end. The issue with that is that Doctors will not want to work here and many other workers at the higher end are very mobile, especially with the possibility to work remotely now.

Wealth is mobile and if it doesn't have a reason to be in Ireland, it won't be. Unless you mean taxes on land/property? If so, good luck convincing all the Bull McCabes of that.

It is irrelevant what an "average worker" pays, we are all more concerned with what we pay. If you have a system where everyone pays a fixed amount of tax (low, middle and high), everyone pays 5K per year say. This might be below what the average is in the EU, but it would have a very different outcome for the low and high earners I am sure you would agree. That is why it is a meaningless statistic.

is there somewhere to show how those comparisons were calculated?

living in the UK here.... I'm looking to get back home so I regularly keep an eye on wages, cost of living and the tax side of things...

A relative was looking to come over here last year and we did an exercise on the wage difference and they faired out better on £21k here over €26k in Dublin... there was also the reduced cost of living (at the time), which also included council tax, and water rates

Pension contributions are capped at a certain % of €115k. So for someone in their 40's, the most you can put in is 25% of €115k (you also pay PRSI and USC on this, it is just the 40% income tax relief).