The point of Taxing the rich
Read more about: Latest Links of Interest
One Response to “The point of Taxing the rich”
Post a comment below:
Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs
Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish Political T-shirts. Get yours now! Visit our shop.»
Contact
Should we be covering something? Email us your ideas, rumours or comments.
Latest Links of Interest
Are you a frugal traveller abroad? See how you’d do on the civil service overseas expenses guidelines (pdf).
How to “cull” banking executives: the UK Financial Services Authority is getting ready to do it.
Gardai inquest evidence dismissed as bollocks’ | The Irish Sentinel
just found this site, no idea if I am late to the party on this one. check it out - bit of fun
Here’s the Dept of Finance statement issued late last evening about the Minister’s discussion with the banks. I think we know why some banks didn’t want to be in the guarantee scheme: those in the scheme can be made an offer they can’t refuse: to merge.
Mary Harney’s expensive trip to Houston and Phoenix.
The FAS/Florida row is not the only time the issue of her travel costs has arisen.
Also remember that tax revenues don’t have to be spent on “public services”. They should also be used to topup the incomes of those people who earn less than the average. My aim is to ensure that everybody can get access to the necessities, but we shouldn’t prejudge the method of delivery. For example, food is entirely privatised (as it should be) but that’s not a problem because we make sure that (almost) everybody has money to buy food. Health is at the other extreme, where it’s simpler to just provide it for free (regardless of how the state organises the system internally). There are many other things, such as accomodation, which could be left to the private sector just like food. With so many different products and services which we hope to gaurantee access to, it can be arrogant to jump to the conclusion that the state must nationalize without considering regulation or simply giving more cash to the people in need.
What we need is not just a Minumum Wage, but a Minimum Take-Home-Pay. Those on the lower incomes (lowest 25% of the population perhaps) should get a pay topup, effectively a negative rate of income tax. With such a system, we could easily drop the Minimum Wage a little if desired and adjust the tax system so that nett pay is not affected.
But as the article says, the above only makes sense if you believe the state has a role in tackling poverty.
I can see how some selfish rich people could argue that they do pay more tax than poor people - if you earn more money then you do pay more tax obviously. That could be used to argue for a fixed tax of 10,000 euros per year for each person! These could continue to argue that the payback from the state is fairly equal - if anything, poor people benefit more from the health system than do the rich as they are more likely to get sick!
But the electorate isn’t yet fully informed enough to be able to proceed to the issues of what we do, or do not, want the state to do; or the technicalities of how to achieve it. Few people realise the scandal that is VAT; a tax which now raises more than Income Tax and is, just like Corporation Tax, a cute trick to tax the poor so the rich don’t have to pay Income Tax. The public need to be fully informed of the current tax system, and also the real effects on people’s livelihoods of potential changes to the tax system.