The package will be all about the three T’s - ‘Timely, Targeted and Temporary’. It will include proposals for tax cuts, fast tracking of Structural Funds to stimulate growth, and a percentage of GDP (maybe 1% or maybe not) from member states. There will also be consideration of the budget deficit problems that Member states find themselves (a bit of slippage, sliding, etc. but not much more tolerance for that on the Irish side of the house and that’s where the T in Temporary might come in.) Whether cuts, savings or spending already proposed by governments (I’m thinking the ’subprime’ lending scheme in the budget last month) will be seen to contribute to the member state’s contributions remains to be seen.

They have been trotting the same old sh**e out now for 10+ years. They are out of ideas and out of energy. Give some of your younger guns a run - worst that can happen is you lose the next election anyway. It is a gamble, it is a risk but it might also turn things in his favour - even if one or two get some traction on something valuable. For all the jokes, look at the energy which Gormley and Ryan have in their portfolios a a case in point.

For clarity it should be explained that the issue of domicile and residence are different things: a person can be resident year round in Ireland but claim another country as domicile for tax purposes (based e.g. on citizenship or working arrangements).  In the UK and Ireland, “non-doms” are only taxed on income brought into the country, which in effect means their spending in the country since that would be the only reason to bring in income given that it will be taxed.  There’s been a fair bit of tabloid rage against the UK non-doms, mainly on account of a perceived effect on house prices, and the UK political parties have competed to sound like they are clamping down on the practice — but without really curtailing it, since the attractiveness of London as an international financial centre would plunge without the ability to attract people to work in City jobs via the tax concession.  Thus there was already a logic for some non-doms to move to Ireland and claim non-dom status here while continuing to manage their careers or businesses from the UK.

Here’s the problem.  Under the Irish tax system, any person resident in Ireland is liable for capital gains tax on any asset anywhere.  The 1997 Tax Consolidation Act provides a non-dom exemption, but only for assets outside Ireland and the UK (see page 97).   Thus the London hedge fund manager living in Ireland with capital gains on UK assets would have to pay capital gains tax on the full gain, not just the part he remits to Ireland.

Until the Finance Bill.  Section 37 (see page 12) removes the references to the UK and thus makes clear that a non-dom in Ireland gets the non-dom tax exemption on any capital gain outside Ireland.  Now, the question of capital gains may be moot in the near-term with the global financial crisis.  But it looks like there is a long-term plan to convince a few very rich people that they can flee whatever The Sun and Gordon Brown might have in mind for them to the safety of Dublin.  Who knows, perhaps JP has been in Geneva long enough to claim Switzerland as a domicile and move back to Ireland full-time!

Politicians and commentators who argued for the Lisbon Treaty did so because they believed it was in Ireland’s best interests. Of those who argued against the treaty, some believed they were also acting in the national interest, even if I personally disagree with them. But others cannot say the same. In whose interests did the Sunday Times campaign against the Lisbon Treaty to the exclusion of all favourable comment? Was it because they really believed that Ireland is best served by wrecking the treaty or because Eurosceptic views were imported, or worse, imposed, from Britain?

The Obama campaign was, overall, a masterclass in grassroots activism.  The sheer numbers of people contributing to the campaign - be it money or time - was amazing.  This meant that the money and staff required to operate the campaign were there all the time.

The Bad

Despite the hype, however, this was not a wonder of grassroots decision making.  Decisions were made way above the field office level, and pushed down.  There was no pushing back up.  All literature and messaging was being delivered at state level, and was customised no more locally than congressional districts.

This occasionally led to a lack of autonomy/flexibility on the ground.  Alexandria could have done some things better given the human resources we had, but directions were being sent down to deal with all [W:Virginia] field offices, and had to take into account the fact that some didn’t have the same local resources.  There was no flexibility, particularly in the last few days, for individual offices to do more than the required.

The Good

The list of things they did well is far longer, though:click here to read the rest of the post.

The government over the same period the tax foregone on the Business Expansion Scheme and the Seed Capital Scheme was just €21.4m and €1.2m respectively. Granted this is not all the money available to business and via a variety of bodies like the IDA, FAS and others subsidies are given to development and skills. However the stark contrast in figures chimes with the sense that we all have now of a party in government which prioritised those who lobbied hardest - our friendly developers - over the much vaunted knowledge economy.

As others have written on this topic, the support for tech startups and small business is negligible and something that other opposition parties can make hay out of. Indigenous enterprise will be required to dig us out of this hole, if we are to use tax breaks to incentivise economic benefit it should go to those business who can provide sustainable long term jobs.

The PQ is below the fold.

DÁIL QUESTION

NO  232

To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of tax that was foregone under each of every property tax based scheme in 2006 and 2007; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

*    For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 11th November, 2008.
Ref No: 39627/08

Minister for Finance ( Mr Lenihan) :

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the amount of tax foregone under each property-based scheme in 2006 is as follows:-

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that data for the tax year 2007 is not yet available as the appropriate income tax and corporation tax returns for that year are either not yet due for filing (by 17th November 2008 in the case of returns filed via ROS) or have only recently been filed but have not yet been processed.

DÁIL QUESTION

NO   233

To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of tax that was foregone under the business expansion scheme and the seed capital scheme respectively in 2006 and 2007; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

*    For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 11th November, 2008.
Ref No: 39628/08

Minister for Finance (Mr Lenihan):

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the estimated tax foregone in respect of the Business Expansion Scheme and the Seed Capital Scheme for the years 2006 and 2007 is as set out in the following table:

I am sure there is plenty of commentary about all this already among people. There is a generally held belief that the young are the most likely to be left wing in a society and most likely to be on the Internet. So it would seem to suggest that if Internet politics aka like Obama could take off in Ireland Labour would have most to gain. Yet from the poll numbers people in the 18 to 24-year-olds are the second most supportive of Fianna Fail after pensioners and the least supportive of Labour. The most dissatisfied are the 35-49 years olds which as they are not effected by the medical cards I guess comes from the increased taxation and possibly the cuts in primary education.

And another result for Labour which really should not be surprising but probably will surprise many is that

In class terms, Labour’s highest score comes from the best well-off AB voters where it gets a 14 per cent share. The party attracts 11 per cent among C1 voters, 10 per cent from the C2 category and 9 per cent among the least well-off DE category. It is well behind Fianna Fáil among the less well-off voters.

However this is not totally bad news for Labour

The opposite is the case for Sinn Féin, which is strongest among the 18 to 24-year-olds with 14 per cent, dropping to 3 per cent among the over-65s. In regional terms the party is strongest in Dublin on 9 per cent, with a relatively even spread of 5 per cent to 6 per cent across the rest of the country. In class terms it is weakest among the AB voters and strongest in the DE category. As in previous polls the party is more attractive to men than women.

WIth Sinn Fein being strong in these area’s shows that there is votes out there to be got by Labour in the categories they assume they have but don’t (young and poor). They just need to go get them away from Sinn Fein. How they do that is difficult to know.

As for Fianna Fail. I think my headline says it all. They badly need 4 more years in government to go back up the polls.

As for Fine Gael and Enda Kenny

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny does better than Mr Cowen for the first time but he is still in negative territory, with 46 per cent dissatisfied compared to 33 per cent who are satisfied with his performance.

If this was Richard Bruton I doubt it would be below 50%, Gilmore on 38 is also not exactly brilliant. It might look good for the opposition but really not good enough.