There have been some outrageous and hilarious things said in this economic debate. I don’t know how economic historians will come to rank them. But surely at the top must be the claim that the rich have paid a ‘far higher price’ than other groups in society as a result of the economic downturn. You [...]

A small follow on from Michael Taft’s post, about the well-known exports tax scam known as the “Double-Irish”.
The story of the tax scam has gone around the world and some at this stage, but I’ve yet to see or hear of it on Irish TV or radio, or in the print media.
Following on from my [...]

Do not be confused. The Government’s recently announced increase in electricity prices through the Public Service Obligation levy (PSO) is a tax, pure and simple. And it’s a very bad tax.
The PSO levy subsidises electricity suppliers who are required to purchase electricity from renewable and peat-generated sources. This is because the costs of electricity from [...]

Brian Keegan from the Chartered Accountants Ireland says that finding €500 million in tax revenue for Budget 2011 will be ‘very difficult to find’. There are no easy choices, he writes in the Sunday Business Post. He does flesh out two ideas - a flat-rate property tax which could raise €500 million and a reduction [...]

Social Justice Ireland has produced a well-argued proposal for refundable tax credits - a long-standing demand to make the tax system more equitable. In essence, as SJI describes it:
‘A refundable tax credit is one where, in the event that the income of an individual is insufficient to use up all of his or her tax [...]

I have to admire those who claim we must bring the low-paid into the tax net. I admire their chutzpah, their audacious willingness to flaunt in public their remarkable ignorance of the tax system. For the low-paid are already in the tax net - big time. Let’s go through the arguments and see if those [...]

The number of Ireland’s rich, measured as those having investable assets of $1 million or more, rose by over 10 % last year. To top it off ‘Ireland is perceived to be ahead of the game’, because apparently, our efforts to rein in the public finances have paid off for the Irish economy. This is [...]

TASC have so far this week brought out two reports, a major and a minor, with more to follow.
The first, A Square Deal? The Real Cost of Making a Meal in the Restaurant Sector focuses on the call for a reduction in the minimum wage from the Restaurant Association of Ireland (RAI).
As those who are [...]

Water charges (or levies or taxes) will come up the agenda and no doubt there will be considerable confusion as to what they are intended for: incentivise ‘efficient use of water’ or cover the cost of water provision. These are not necessarily intertwined; one may incentivise efficient use and not recover costs and vice-versa.
What is [...]

The Government has a plan. And, yes, you should be worried. The Government’s approach to fiscal stabilisation - namely, a deflationary approach - is often portrayed as ‘the only option’. Of course, it isn’t. There are other approaches, in particular those based on boosting investment and output in order to grow employment and, so, the [...]