New Household Tax - Boycott

zumi · 12-03-2012 11:27pm

If this was just an annual charge of E100 then I wouldn't oppose it. As a self employed contractor I have paid large trenches of tax and will always pay my tax. This "charge" is an open-ended tax, its going to increase annually and those who are crying "Its only E100 for God's sake" will be crying for years to come when the bill of E1,000/month and up depending on the size of your house lands on the mat. If you think this isn't going to happen.... just wait.
If you think that is crazy.... keep reading.
I oppose this charge on this ground and this ground only, picture this scenario folks....
You've worked hard all your life, raised your children and own a nice home which you worked damn hard for and finally paid off your mortgage. You retire and life is good, your on a fixed income but you have all of your bases covered.
You get ill, it happens when you get old! Your medical bills start to stack up as its not all covered by your medical insurance. The annual bill for the house tax lands in the door, jaysus.... its nearly 12,000/yr! Oh he's only scaremongering now I hear you say! keep reading!!
You have a choice, food, medical bills or the household charge. Your health worsens, more bills. Sherriff comes knocking looking for your tax. He doesn't care your sick he has a job to do. Your up in court for not paying, your ordered to sell your house to pay for the tax.
Now I know this may seem far fetched, but it happens hundreds of times a week all over the US. The tax must be collected people sorry..... they are just doing their job. Now your out on the street.... How the hell could this have happened?? You had it all so carefully planned. If you want to see this happen to you or maybe a parent or family member sit idly by and let the household tax pass. Im not scaremongering, its the truth and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The government will have to get more creative there are hundreds of ways to collect more tax, there are many educated intelligent people in Government and they will come up with something. Just not this very dangerous type of tax. Its so very shortsighted and its a disaster waiting to happen to someone dear or near you.

relax carry on · 12-03-2012 11:58pm

CricketDude wrote: »

There is an easier way to collect money from property than taxing people who bought their homes.
Every tax paying renter in the country can claim back about €400 per year from their tax, for rent paid. Cancel this. Also cancel mortgage interest relief for people who own their own homes. Why should you get tax relief on accommodation.
So doing the above revenue will make much, much more from property, without having to collect a penny. They just take away the tax reliefs and thats all there is to it.

The rent tax credit is no longer 400 euro a year. It was reduced in the 2011 budget and will continue to be reduced until its gone in 2017. It is also no longer open to new claimants who only started renting after 07/12/10. Also to qualify for full 400 euro of relief you had to have paid over 2000 Euro in rent for the year. To get the full benefit of it, you had to have paid 400 euro worth of tax in claim year.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/credits/rent-credit.html

Monty Burnz · 13-03-2012 12:01am

They should have just stuck this on income tax and save all this fannying around. Taxes need to go up. Deal with it folks.

[Deleted User] · 13-03-2012 12:07am

zumi wrote: »

If this was just an annual charge of E100 then I wouldn't oppose it. As a self employed contractor I have paid large trenches of tax and will always pay my tax. This "charge" is an open-ended tax, its going to increase annually and those who are crying "Its only E100 for God's sake" will be crying for years to come when the bill of E1,000/month and up depending on the size of your house lands on the mat. If you think this isn't going to happen.... just wait.
If you think that is crazy.... keep reading.
I oppose this charge on this ground and this ground only, picture this scenario folks....
You've worked hard all your life, raised your children and own a nice home which you worked damn hard for and finally paid off your mortgage. You retire and life is good, your on a fixed income but you have all of your bases covered.
You get ill, it happens when you get old! Your medical bills start to stack up as its not all covered by your medical insurance. The annual bill for the house tax lands in the door, jaysus.... its nearly 12,000/yr! Oh he's only scaremongering now I hear you say! keep reading!!
You have a choice, food, medical bills or the household charge. Your health worsens, more bills. Sherriff comes knocking looking for your tax. He doesn't care your sick he has a job to do. Your up in court for not paying, your ordered to sell your house to pay for the tax.
Now I know this may seem far fetched, but it happens hundreds of times a week all over the US. The tax must be collected people sorry..... they are just doing their job. Now your out on the street.... How the hell could this have happened?? You had it all so carefully planned. If you want to see this happen to you or maybe a parent or family member sit idly by and let the household tax pass. Im not scaremongering, its the truth and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The government will have to get more creative there are hundreds of ways to collect more tax, there are many educated intelligent people in Government and they will come up with something. Just not this very dangerous type of tax. Its so very shortsighted and its a disaster waiting to happen to someone dear or near you.

Where's this 12k per year figure coming from? No doubt you've done the maths, so lets have it

oscarBravo · 13-03-2012 1:30am

zumi wrote: »

The government will have to get more creative there are hundreds of ways to collect more tax, there are many educated intelligent people in Government and they will come up with something.

That's a cop-out. You're objecting to a new tax on the grounds that it will cause people financial hardship, then proposing that the government come up with a putative new tax that won't cause people hardship, while absolving yourself of the responsibility of putting any thought into what that tax might be.

Has it occurred to you that it's logically impossible to close our structural deficit - the shortfall between tax revenue and public expenditure - without raising taxes or cutting expenditure or (most feasibly) both?

Increased taxes will hurt someone. Expenditure cuts will hurt someone. Both are necessary. There will be pain. It's time some of us stopped trying to fool ourselves about that.

zumi · 13-03-2012 2:29am

I'll come back to you on my figures in 20 years, when your getting the bill through the door. I think maybe I didn't make myself clear, the people being currently tossed out of their houses all over the US didn't expect their tax bills to be so high. Tax is funny like that, see you have no control over how much you get charged.
But for S & G lets take for example a ordinary public/private educated worker who bought their moderate house in a nice area and in 20 years come to realise after all of their hard work maintaining it..... it has a decent value. I don't think E400,000 is out of the realm of possibility. The tax will be assessed on the value, and assessed at whatever the Government values it at... not the market value as anyone who has imported a car lately has realised. But we'll give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say they will be fair....
Lets use the current rate of property tax in Texas for example..... its 2.75% per annum.
By my calculations thats E11,000/yr. I was a grand off, my bad....
These are nominal values of course and in real terms won't be as bad but still on a fixed pension they are rather unpleasant and even more unpleasant when Mr. Sherriff is knocking on your doras.
I know there needs to be pain involved, these Bondholders are powerful people and not to be trifled with so they're going to get paid.... but the future is hard to predict even for the best planners but lets not shoot ourselves in the foot doing it.

psychward · 13-03-2012 4:43am

zumi wrote: »

You get ill, it happens when you get old! Your medical bills start to stack up as its not all covered by your medical insurance. The annual bill for the house tax lands in the door, jaysus.... its nearly 12,000/yr! Oh he's only scaremongering now I hear you say! keep reading!!
You have a choice, food, medical bills or the household charge. Your health worsens, more bills. Sherriff comes knocking looking for your tax. He doesn't care your sick he has a job to do. Your up in court for not paying, your ordered to sell your house to pay for the tax.
Now I know this may seem far fetched, but it happens hundreds of times a week all over the US. The tax must be collected people sorry..... they are just doing their job. Now your out on the street.... How the hell could this have happened?? You had it all so carefully planned. If you want to see this happen to you or maybe a parent or family member sit idly by and let the household tax pass. Im not scaremongering, its the truth and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The government will have to get more creative there are hundreds of ways to collect more tax, there are many educated intelligent people in Government and they will come up with something. Just not this very dangerous type of tax. Its so very shortsighted and its a disaster waiting to happen to someone dear or near you.

Wasn't there some poor guy in a wheelchair who had cancer driven to suicide last year when the sherrif wanted to repossess his fridge ? People don't get it that the sheriff only cares about his bounty and the taxman is the most unforgiving of all once he gets his hooks into you, never writes anything off, always insists that he gets paid first, never forgives and never forgets.

Am Chile · 13-03-2012 5:18am

zumi wrote: »

If this was just an annual charge of E100 then I wouldn't oppose it. As a self employed contractor I have paid large trenches of tax and will always pay my tax. This "charge" is an open-ended tax, its going to increase annually and those who are crying "Its only E100 for God's sake" will be crying for years to come when the bill of E1,000/month and up depending on the size of your house lands on the mat. If you think this isn't going to happen.... just wait.
If you think that is crazy.... keep reading.
I oppose this charge on this ground and this ground only, picture this scenario folks....
You've worked hard all your life, raised your children and own a nice home which you worked damn hard for and finally paid off your mortgage. You retire and life is good, your on a fixed income but you have all of your bases covered.
You get ill, it happens when you get old! Your medical bills start to stack up as its not all covered by your medical insurance. The annual bill for the house tax lands in the door, jaysus.... its nearly 12,000/yr! Oh he's only scaremongering now I hear you say! keep reading!!
You have a choice, food, medical bills or the household charge. Your health worsens, more bills. Sherriff comes knocking looking for your tax. He doesn't care your sick he has a job to do. Your up in court for not paying, your ordered to sell your house to pay for the tax.
Now I know this may seem far fetched, but it happens hundreds of times a week all over the US. The tax must be collected people sorry..... they are just doing their job. Now your out on the street.... How the hell could this have happened?? You had it all so carefully planned. If you want to see this happen to you or maybe a parent or family member sit idly by and let the household tax pass. Im not scaremongering, its the truth and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The government will have to get more creative there are hundreds of ways to collect more tax, there are many educated intelligent people in Government and they will come up with something. Just not this very dangerous type of tax. Its so very shortsighted and its a disaster waiting to happen to someone dear or near you.

One of the best posts I have read on a thread in a while, you hit the nail exactly on the head about how property tax works in the states and how a future property tax could work here in the future, I recommend people watch this property tax foreclosure video, is this the kinda future you want for your friends and relatives and rest of the country?

[Deleted User] · 13-03-2012 10:51am

Why all this talk of America? Why no mention of every other European country which generally has a property tax by default?

So these are the new tactics eh? Property tax = we're all going to be homeless.

Manach · 13-03-2012 11:32am

Why America - because of a semi-shared cultural environment make it easier to compare and contrast the workings of the property tax and that as well to pick up on how some variants in the States allow a greater degree of oversight by the voter than just the one sided presentation of the expanding tax bill that is being pushed in Ireland.

JustinDee · 13-03-2012 11:41am

Manach wrote: »

Why America - because of a semi-shared cultural environment make it easier to compare and contrast the workings of the property tax and that as well to pick up on how some variants in the States allow a greater degree of oversight by the voter than just the one sided presentation of the expanding tax bill that is being pushed in Ireland.

Not really that valid a comparison though. Myopic even. Yes, there is Property. Yes, there is Taxation. Governed by different laws covering landlords, lenders and borrowers alike.

Manach · 13-03-2012 12:10pm

Property law is indeed complex. But I know that Ireland/UK/USA share a common-law system that means there are general similarities on how Land is commercially handled and hence there is a comparison to be made - unlike comparing civil-law European jurisdications which also have a property tax.

Treanor2011 · 13-03-2012 12:15pm

Tim Robbins wrote: »

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Proof of you claim?

because I dont see no paved roads on this side of the millenium, nor street lightning, nor my grass cut, not my bins collected, nor water supplied
had to pay thousands for electricity connection from a pole 20 meters away and several more thousand to treat own sewage

A 999 call to your house is more expensive to service. Did you ever hear of economies of scale?

It costs money to get an ambulance if you don't have a medical card last bill I seen was in 2006 10 mile from the hospital cost 300 euro . Your better off ringing a cab .

oscarBravo · 13-03-2012 1:07pm

zumi wrote: »

I know there needs to be pain involved, these Bondholders are powerful people and not to be trifled with so they're going to get paid....

Enough with the bondholder waffle. The bondholders have been paid. The structural deficit has nothing to do with bondholders. We are spending more than we are taking in, and that's not sustainable. We need to raise taxes and cut spending. It's primary school maths, and your appeals to emotion won't change that.

walshb · 13-03-2012 2:20pm

Me thinks hundreds of thousands will be paying within the next three weeks.

RichardAnd · 13-03-2012 2:43pm

walshb wrote: »

Me thinks hundreds of thousands will be paying within the next three weeks.

I agree. For good or for ill, the masses will comply in the end.

Sudsy86 · 13-03-2012 3:27pm

This is a foot in the door, stealth tax...It's either gonna succeed or fail miserably...

My own preference is to hold out as late as possible and see what the masses do...The way I look at it is, if the masses pay the tax then fine I'll have to pay but if the numbers are very little and they decide to re-approach the tax from another angle then I will not be refunded my money...The 100+ thousand that have paid the tax out of the possible 1.7mil are not gonna get refunded their €100 if this is abolished, they will either be exempt from the next re-approach to the tax or they will be forced to pay another tax worded differently...

I'm hardly in the possition to afford this tax let alone another tax on top of it...

meglome · 13-03-2012 3:48pm

RichardAnd wrote: »

I agree. For good or for ill, the masses will comply in the end.

You know I hate the tone of this. I personally don't own a house but I would have no issue paying this tax. Don't get me wrong I don't like paying taxes but for some time we've been quite under-taxed so this day was coming. We're only getting towards normal levels of taxation, where the state isn't funded by unsustainable stamp duty.

RichardAnd · 13-03-2012 4:22pm

meglome wrote: »

You know I hate the tone of this. I personally don't own a house but I would have no issue paying this tax. Don't get me wrong I don't like paying taxes but for some time we've been quite under-taxed so this day was coming. We're only getting towards normal levels of taxation, where the state isn't funded by unsustainable stamp duty.

There's no tone in what I said. I only expressed my opinion on what might happen and no my feelings on this tax, hence, "for good or for ill".

meglome · 13-03-2012 4:23pm

RichardAnd wrote: »

There's no tone in what I said. I only expressed my opinion on what might happen and no my feelings on this tax, hence, "for good or for ill".

It was the "masses will comply" bit.

FreudianSlippers · 13-03-2012 4:33pm

Sudsy86 wrote: »

This is a foot in the door, stealth tax...It's either gonna succeed or fail miserably...

My own preference is to hold out as late as possible and see what the masses do...The way I look at it is, if the masses pay the tax then fine I'll have to pay but if the numbers are very little and they decide to re-approach the tax from another angle then I will not be refunded my money...The 100+ thousand that have paid the tax out of the possible 1.7mil are not gonna get refunded their €100 if this is abolished, they will either be exempt from the next re-approach to the tax or they will be forced to pay another tax worded differently...

I'm hardly in the possition to afford this tax let alone another tax on top of it...

Here's where those who say "I'm not paying because it will only go up" are really forcing the government's hand by NOT paying.

Using your numbers, the government is expecting to get €170million from this scheme. If only 10% of people pay, actually let's be generous and count the people that will chicken out at the last minute and say that even 50% of your 1.7million people pay, that means the government will have only gotten €85million. Now what do you think they're going to do?
Turn around and say "gee... they sure fooled us"???

Not a chance. They will spend massive amounts of money (probably at least the €85mil that they collected in the first go) to implement an expensive system to get money out of everyone. Except now, well... now they are already down about 170million + another 170million for the next year + the cost of implementing a system to catch and prosecute people who didn't pay the first time and this time (lets just conservatively say €50mil).

Now the government has a €390million hole to fill. Using your 1.7 million people, that means they will be forced to raise the household charge to €229 per year. So, it's self-prophetic in a way saying you don't want to pay because you're afraid it will go up... because by not paying you are guaranteeing it will go up.

Manach · 13-03-2012 4:39pm

Perhaps the Government might instead do the unthinkable and actually engage in significant cutbacks so as to balance the budget and rein-in the entitlement culture.

Permabear · 13-03-2012 4:39pm

This post has been deleted.

FreudianSlippers · 13-03-2012 4:40pm

Manach wrote: »

Property law is indeed complex. But I know that Ireland/UK/USA share a common-law system that means there are general similarities on how Land is commercially handled and hence there is a comparison to be made - unlike comparing civil-law European jurisdications which also have a property tax.

Common law has to do with the judiciary and the courts; it's precedent. It has nothing to do with taxation and property valuation.

The "US" is also a poor example because it's not homogeneous. State to State, yeah... but even within states, County to County differ in their tax.

Texas raised as an example. Well, Texas has no state income tax and no corporate tax. They have a minimum 6.25% sales tax and localities can add up to 2%. Texas also has some of the highest property taxes in the USA.

You can compare all the states in the US if you want, we're still far more close in taxation principles and reality to the UK and the rest of the EU.

FreudianSlippers · 13-03-2012 4:40pm

Manach wrote: »

Perhaps the Government might instead do the unthinkable and actually engage in significant cutbacks so as to balance the budget and rein-in the entitlement culture.

Unfortunately it won't be enough, we need both.

RichardAnd · 13-03-2012 4:41pm

meglome wrote: »

It was the "masses will comply" bit.

That's simply the way I write. I'm sorry if you took umbrage.

meglome · 13-03-2012 4:45pm

RichardAnd wrote: »

That's simply the way I write. I'm sorry if you took umbrage.

Sorry "masses will comply" sounds to me like the sheep will do as the sheep do. I accept you didn't mean it that way. Really it's not about being complaint but about accepting the reality that we don't take in enough in tax.

RichardAnd · 13-03-2012 5:02pm

meglome wrote: »

Sorry "masses will comply" sounds to me like the sheep will do as the sheep do. I accept you didn't mean it that way. Really it's not about being complaint but about accepting the reality that we don't take in enough in tax.

I'll admit it did sound a little terse upon re-reading it. What I really meant is that I'd imagine most people will pay it before the closing date and that the slow uptake is just down human procrastination. I do enough of it myself!

Then again, perhaps many will make the decision not to pay it as a form of protest. In either case, I'm interested to see how this ends.

RichardAnd · 13-03-2012 5:47pm

A fresh report on RTE:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0313/household.html

Apparently, 85% of households have not yet paid the charge.

meglome · 13-03-2012 5:50pm

RichardAnd wrote: »

A fresh report on RTE:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0313/household.html

Apparently, 85% of households have not yet paid the charge.

Today it met with the ESB electricity network to discuss how they can share information in order to track down those who do not pay.

The Data Protection Commissioner says its awaiting a response from the parties as to how they will do this within their code of practise.

This bit is interesting.

I still think most people will pay up as they know there is no other option.

New Household Tax - Boycott

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