Budget 2024 - The Squeezed Middle

What makes you think rates wont go down over a few years

Used the journal.ie's calculator and I'll be €800-900 per year better off next year. Not much but better than nothing. I'd nearly rather the tax money be kept and used for infrastructure projects, social housing, heath care etc. €20 a week won't go far on an individual basis. FYI I earn approx €77k per annum in a salaried job so doing OK.

What grinds my gears is the energy payment nonsense. Taking public tax money and handing it straight to private energy companies. That will be the first question I'll have for any canvasser in the future anyway, why are we taking public funds and giving them to private enterprise instead of tackling the problem and regulating the energy market for the benefit of the consumers.

For the life of me I can't see how a single person on a lower income is supposed to carve out a decent life in Ireland. Can't buy a house, can't afford to rent, going to work just because they'd be fed up on the dole. The incentive to better oneself and build a decent life has been crushed by deregulation and being too far on the side of laissez faire capitalism.

I'm one of the lucky ones, have a wife whose income I could rely on to buy a modest house together. But I see many of our friends struggling to afford to raise their kids, and they're on good incomes. A few friends have gone part time because of childcare costs. Not worth working full time.

It's easy to see why we need to have inward migration, and why we take in single men. Who else is going to work when it doesn't pay to have a family. It'll all go t*ts up eventually when the migrants go home and we have no money to pay the pensions of an aging population. FYI, I'm not anti migrant, they're just a symptom of the hamster wheel of runaway capitalism that the Western world is all on.

Rant over. Off to enjoy my €20 for the week.

Obviously I cant link your contract, which is a legally binding. But if it says you automatically go back to tracker, thats what it means. Check this article about the tracker mortgage scandal.

But like Hellrazer said, theres not that many contracts left.

Possibly the biggest change to any item in the Budget. The Vacant Homes Tax is going up from 3 to 5 times the rate of Property Tax. I hope this encourages the owners to put those homes back into occupation. That would be the quickest way to solve any shortage, and there are tens of thousands of such properties.

Not great, not terrible, not nothing.

€450 electricity credits

Just on the mortgage interest relief, I'm stuck with a stinking vulture fund paying 9% and can't switch cause I don't earn enough. If any of you begrudgers want to swap your 2% fixed rate with me I'll gladly let you claim the few quid!

The vacant property tax should only apply to those owning more than one domestic property.

Nobody will begrudge you your few quid. It's the people who hsve decided to stick with their tracker and are now at ECB interest rates plus 0.5% or 1% (or whatever the deal they have is) that do not deserve 1 cent.

This relief could easily have been targeted at people paying obscene rates such as yours.

Think il get an extra 6e a week next year, sorts me out for a coffee every Monday anyway 🤣

If you are Minister for Finance what would you have done differently?

A great idea. Much better than the "scrap USC" nonsense that gets shouted too often. I did hear Michael McGrath saying he'd be looking at more favourable tax treatment of ETFs and exit tax so that would be a positive step.

Yeah there's a department of finance review of the fund sector ongoing at the moment. Would like any tax changes to be wider than funds though. The €1270 CGT exemption also needs to be looked at.

Maybe if people could efficiently invest in financial markets it might reduce the speculation in property.

Esri- the economy is running at full steam n doesn't require more petrol thrown on it.

Government - we are committed to tacking inflation. Here's e14 billion to help- only a double digit increase on last year!

Anyone know what the situation is with Child Benefit, someone told me that it's been extended to school kids aged 18 and still enrolled at school. But watching the 6.1 news there was no mention of this. Does anyone have any clarification on this? If true, It's a big move yet the news doesn't mention it.