Head over to our T
Stealth Taxes
Read more about: Taxation 
Just so that the Blogwaves don’t get jammed with Bertiegate to the exclusion of all other matters that have relevance for the voters, might I ask if anyone has a breakdown of the various “Stealth Taxes” that are constantly, and correctly, debated, usually without any finite conclusion that would encourage a voting pattern?
The gross yield from these during the period 2002-2006, in each fiscal year?
The cost of collection?
The benefits, if any, apart from the revenue, accruing?
I would start with a few obvious ones:
- Parking Meters & Parking Fines.
- Dividends paid to the Exchequer from State & Semi-State trading companies.
- Credit Card fees.
- Airport Charges.
- Fees for Freedom of Information requests.
- Non-Contributory Pensions to Public Sector “Workers”.
Etc…
Are they not going to tax the tv licence fee. ie taxing a tax
thats illegal under EU law is it not?
How are airport charges a “stealth tax”? Is your ESB bill a “steath tax”? After all, they’re being paid to state companies.
Why is it bad for the government to receive dividends from state and semistate companies? Are they not supposed to behave like regular shareholders? (That said, I’m not particularly hot on the idea of any limited company paying dividends to shareholders.)
A parking fine is a stealth tax because…? Really, I’m having problems figuring this out. The point behind parking metres and parking fines is to make sure the streets are clear for traffic and to make sure parking spots aren’t hogged; the money earned, like the bag levy, is primarily a side-effect. Sure, I’ve some big problems with the structure of the parking fees, but I don’t consider them a steath tax.
The issue you have with credit cards isn’t credit card fees, which are a matter for the credit card company, but stamp duty on the cards.
Keith,
I was not trying to analyse the logic of taxation.
Colbert, I think it was, who said that Taxation was like skinning a goose ” The greatest amount of feathers with the least amount of noise”.
So it is still. Income Tax is a lazy tax, in that it penalises effort.
A consumption tax is probably the fairest all round method, as it is levied on every consumer.
Of course, it needs to be graded.
Stealth taxes are the not-so -obvious ways that Ministers of Finance conceal total taxation, whilst boasting about low rates of Income Tax & CPT.
In fact, only recently, before his latest tribunalations (my word!), The Bert, replying to an American businessman’s comments about the lack of competitivness in Ireland, repeated this inaccurate Mantra.
If one accepts that Income Tax & CPT are the primary taxes & that VAT; Stamp & Excise Duties are the secondary taxes; then all other Exchequer Revenue is indirect.
It is this “Indirect” revenue that I would like analysed & I was hoping that readers might add what they know & then, maybe, it would be possibe to quantify and collate these, until we have a comprehensive overview of what the State is taking from our citizens and from visitors to Ireland.
In the matter of dividends extracted from Utilities – DAA; Aer Lingus; ESB; Bord Gais; Bord na Mona etc., the profit earned is at the expense of the consumer, therefore it is a tax on consumption.
When double yellow lines are removed to make way for paid parking, the argument about traffic flow collapses, which is what has happened all over the streets of Dublin – St. Stephen’s Greeen is a typical example.
Fines extracted in the Courts are another example. None of these have helped the flow of traffic, anywhere.
They are lightly coloured devices to augment the “low rate of Income Tax”, so often the boast of FF Ministers.
They are Stealth Taxes.
When Dr. Ryan, Minister of Finance in the 1950s, introduced Wholesale Tax at 2.5%, the yield was far in excess of what had been budgeted.
Even then FF got their sums wrong!
In fact it was such a success that Ryan raised it to 5% in the following Budget.
Tell me about Greed.
FF (and Labour) will spend every penny they can extract from you, even when they get 50% more than they expected.
Nor am I. I’m just saying that some of those things you’re characterising as stealth taxation are not stealth taxation. There’s lots of things out there that are stealth taxation—consider VAT, for instance—but by bundling a bunch of other stuff you don’t like in there only muddys things.
The best translation I know of for that Colbert quote is “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”.
That might be so, but when did this become about tax in general rather than “stealth taxes”. I’m guessing your problem isn’t so much stealth taxes as the collection of revenues by government in general.
The actual problem with income tax isn’t that it’s levied on income, but that it’s levied on earnings rather than the part of it that could be considered profit, cf. corporation tax.
Yes, I know. The phrase “stealth tax” makes that obvious.
Aside: how can DAA, Aer Lingus and Bord na Mona be considered utility companies?
Would you consider dividends paid by these companies to their private shareholders (or, for that matter, by any company to their shareholders) a form of private taxation?
Notice the phrase I’ve emboldened: paid parking. Not that I see how this has anything to do with my argument that parking fines aren’t a stealth tax, except that all that’s happened is that the city council have changed their by-laws to follow common public practice. After all, where there are double yellow lines, you’ll typically still find plenty of people parking on them and restricting traffic flow; it only takes a few to cause a bottleneck. On the other hand, if you’ve going to open it up to parking, you need to make sure that those using it use it for as short a time as possible (to maximise its utility), and that’s where paid parking comes into it.
Would you characterise fines for other offences similarly? For instance, if somebody’s fined for being drunk and disorderly, would you consider that stealth taxation or a form of punishment? I’m not kidding here.
To prove or disprove that, you’d need to do a study of traffic flow before, during, and after the use of double-yellow lines in various areas over the city.
Saying it doesn’t make it so.
What does this have to do with stealth taxes?
Here’s part of the information you’re looking for: http://www.revenue.ie/annualreport/annualreport_2005/en/app_05.pdf
And hidden in plain view on the Department of Finance website under “Financial & Economic Information” in the sidebar is “Statement of Exchequer Surplus/Deficit in the Period Ended 31 August 2006“, which details all monies taken by the government, and we mustn’t forget the Budget.
Thank you for the literal translation of Colbert’s famous “bon mot”.
And the very searching comments on Taxation.
Now, can someone give a “definitive” list of Stealth Taxes, so that the issue can be debated?
I ask because it seems fruitless to continually bemoan the presence of these taxes, without knowiing what they are.
Can you, KEITH, supply the answers from your comprehensive knowledge of the subject?