How would you raise the 4-6 Billion needed in 8 months

eamonnm79

Vincent Brown tried to get reps of the three main parties and sinn fein to have a go at it last night without much success.
He actually gave it a go himself in his weekly column in the times last week. (a faily good go in my opinion) Anyone here fancy giving it a go?

My opinion would be that the vast majoriy of it should be taken from the top 6-10 %. These people only pay 27% tax at the moment. Any where as high as 40% would be fine by me. We also need to close off as many tax loop holes as possible. The Idea of making people disclose their avoidence practices is a brilliant one. It is also the method that would affct the economy least.
PAYE Workers are at a complete disadvantage to those who can afford to pay an accountant. The revenue should not rest until the cost of hiring an accountant for a welthy individual is more than the accountant can save them.

cavedave

There is a thread here on new taxes.

It would seem difficult to take this money out of the economy without further reducing demand. Take out in the sense of not spend it anymore or taxing it.

You can tax areas that are currently illegal without significantly reducing current demand as the costs of illegality can made equal to the tax.

I would like to see dominant assurance contracts tried(pdf).

Lobelia Overhill

eamonnm79 wrote: »

My opinion would be that the vast majoriy of it should be taken from the top 6-10 %. These people only pay 27% tax at the moment. Any where as high as 40% would be fine by me.

income tax used to be as high as 48% 15 - 20 years ago ... y'know during the last Recession

Saabdub

Sell Bonds, ESB, Bord Gais, Bord na Mona, RTE, the rest of Aer Lingus, Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports, An Post, Coillte, etc. I'd suggest the transport companies but I don't think anyone would buy them. That would raise some money:D

Saabdub

samb

I thought vincents suggestion was not bad. The advantage of hitting the wealthy is that they tend to spend less of their money in the economy anyway. People on low pay spend it on food, cloths and various treats while wealthy people spend there excess on investments (and largely abroad at this time).

Also we should hit the public servants again on the pensions. It is nothing but imoral that I can't afford pension provision yet I'm paying the pension of some teacher who earns more than double my salary.

Pension provision should be equal for all people. You pay in a state pension with reasonable tax relief (at lower rate tax relief) and you get it back when you retire. Same for public servants as anyone else - it's just another two tier system set up in this country.


In summary - Tax the rich and those sheltered from the real pain.

We need deflation in wages urgently or we will lose more jobs. The government needs to drive down wages throughout the economy. I'm on 30K which in any other country would be considered an excellent salary - In this inflated economy I'm considered low paid. Labour and the trade unions consider a teacher on 60k to be on 'relatively modest incomes, relatively modest incomes'. They are absolutely minted in any other country.......We have to get real.

cavedave

samb
In summary - Tax the rich and those sheltered from the real pain.

Unless you can make references that show that raising tax will actually increase tax returns (laffer curve and such) any talk of doing that is more politics then economics.

You could do the Cuban thing of making it illegal not to pick up hitchhikers. Then you could close down Dublin Bus...

dresden8

samb wrote: »

The government needs to drive down wages throughout the economy. I'm on 30K which in any other country would be considered an excellent salary - In this inflated economy I'm considered low paid.

Nobody's forcing you to accept it.

Off you go into your employer now and tell him you don't want it.

ongarite

Bring in lower tax rate of 10% for those who pay no tax at all.
Increase lower rate to 23%
Increase higher rate to 45%
Cut dole & children allowance by €30 a week
Scrap TRS & rent relief

cavedave

ongarite

Bring in lower tax rate of 10% for those who pay no tax at all.
Increase lower rate to 23%
Increase higher rate to 45%
Cut dole & children allowance by €30 a week
Scrap TRS & rent relief

Do you have any references to the economic effects of these actions?

bobbbb

10% levy for 2 - 3 years on ALL income for EVERYONE including social welfare. The more you make, the more you pay. The less you make the less you pay, but everyone pays something.

The tax on social welfare increases by 1% for every year you are out of work.

Cut childrens allowance out completely for those on over €50,000.

€1 - €2 on fags.
€0.25 per unit on all alcohol incl offies.
Abolish car tax and add it at the pumps. The more you use the more you pay.

Abolish Stamp duty and add a property tax for those buying property from now on or those who havent already paid stamp duty.

Just add up all income of everyone in the country plus social welfare and 10% of that is a lot of money raised.

Mr. Incognito

The government cannot control the waste in the private sector- the private sector will self regulate. It can however:

Fire most of the middle management in the HSE that should have been fired when the HSE came into existence.

Set up a strategic team to go through every government department and highlight wastefull spending.

VOUCHED expenses for TD's and civil servants. This unvouched gravy train is a joke.

ONE penions for ex public servants at the hightest pension for the positionm, not three prensions from three different positions held.

Abolish stamp duty, developers get around it anyway with contracts for differences.

Reduce minimum wage and corporation tax.

If the incomings are gone down- the outgoings have to be trimmed. Borrowing is a short term solution and is NOT going to get us out of this economic mess.

CamperMan

I would slash dole payments by 50% (dole payments accounts for more than half of government expenditure!!), ministers wages would also be slashed, the governments private jet could go and so to could expenses like Mary Harney's hair styling (total waste of money)

cavedave

CamperMan I would slash dole payments by 50% (dole payments accounts for more than half of government expenditure!!),

[citation needed]

bobbbb

Just add up all income of everyone in the country plus social welfare and 10% of that is a lot of money raised.

and the laffer curve? Do you have any evidence for how much money this would raise?

oppiuy

All well an good cutting the minimum wage and the dole, but unless the price of living comes down with it.

If it was at all possible, wages and prices should go back to where they were 15 years ago and we start again

Flamed Diving

Increase tax to 100%
Politburo
Butter Rations

Sorted.

AARRRGH

cavedave wrote: »

You can tax areas that are currently illegal without significantly reducing current demand as the costs of illegality can made equal to the tax.

That's an interesting suggestion. If we legalised hash in Ireland, we could tax it and we would have a huge amount of tourism.

Not sure what social problems we'd get, but it should be considered anyway.

cavedave

AARRRGH

Not sure what social problems we'd get, but it should be considered anyway.

Not altogether sure you can legalise it. Treaties we have entered into might prohibit that according to that thread. Portugal seems to have done ok with decriminalisation.

There are other things that are currently illegal that instead could be taxed (or result in fines/indulgences). Could you tax the income of a drug dealer while not having the drugs legal? CAB seem to do something similar currently, but could it be done in a more everyday (if that's the word) way?

bobbbb

cavedave wrote: »

[citation needed]



and the laffer curve? Do you have any evidence for how much money this would raise?

Do you have any evidence that you can type anything else but the above line?

Do some work for yourself for a change.
Find out how much income for everyone in the whole country.
Take 10% of that. You multiply it by 0.1.

Then thats the extra tax take. You can play with any other taxes (give some back, take more etc) based on that number.

bobbbb

bobbbb wrote: »

Then thats the extra tax take. You can play with any other taxes (give some back, take more etc) based on that number.

No, its not.

You've just shown evidence that you have a very limited understanding of economics.

Time Magazine

CamperMan wrote: »

I would slash dole payments by 50% (dole payments accounts for more than half of government expenditure!!)

No, no they don't. Dole cost about €7bn last year. The govt's budget for 2009 is about €79bn. That's less than 10%, not more than 50%.

As for my suggestion: a 7.5% pension levy for all public servants on less than €40,000, 12.5% on those above. Lower the tax band thresholds by about €3,000. Introduce a 3% levy on incomes over €24,000 and increase the higher tax band to 48%.

Then cut cut cut. Lower dole by €15 per week. The housing market is in freefall - lower rental supplements. Don't touch corporation tax.

Then resign from government and let somebody capable look after the nation's finances.

10000maniacs

The Economist wrote: »

No, no they don't. Dole cost about €7bn last year. The govt's budget for 2009 is about €79bn. That's less than 10%, not more than 50%.

As for my suggestion: a 7.5% pension levy for all public servants on less than €40,000, 12.5% on those above. Lower the tax band thresholds by about €3,000. Introduce a 3% levy on incomes over €24,000 and increase the higher tax band to 48%.

Then cut cut cut. Lower dole by €15 per week. The housing market is in freefall - lower rental supplements. Don't touch corporation tax.

Then resign from government and let somebody capable look after the nation's finances.

Sensible suggestions, The Economist.
I would add to that Going through each position in the Public/Civil service
including Medical/Education/Gardai positions and justify why each position should be kept. The positions that cannot be justified should be axed.
Give them statutory redundancy like most people in the private sector.
Axe Gardai overtime. There are certain cases where employing 2 new Gardai would be cheaper than paying overtime for certain senior Gardai. This skullduggery has to be stopped.:mad:

eamonnm79

The Economist wrote: »

No, no they don't. Dole cost about €7bn last year. The govt's budget for 2009 is about €79bn. That's less than 10%, not more than 50%.

As for my suggestion: a 7.5% pension levy for all public servants on less than €40,000, 12.5% on those above. Lower the tax band thresholds by about €3,000. Introduce a 3% levy on incomes over €24,000 and increase the higher tax band to 48%.

Then cut cut cut. Lower dole by €15 per week. The housing market is in freefall - lower rental supplements. Don't touch corporation tax.

Then resign from government and let somebody capable look after the nation's finances.

I thought government expenditure was between 55-60 billion?
I would agree with most of your suggestions for cutbacks but I would also say that we have to address all of the tax avoidence schemes available to those on higher incomes. The 25% tax free pension rule clearly favours the wealthy disproportionitely

thebman

The Economist wrote: »

No, no they don't. Dole cost about €7bn last year. The govt's budget for 2009 is about €79bn. That's less than 10%, not more than 50%.

As for my suggestion: a 7.5% pension levy for all public servants on less than €40,000, 12.5% on those above. Lower the tax band thresholds by about €3,000. Introduce a 3% levy on incomes over €24,000 and increase the higher tax band to 48%.

Then cut cut cut. Lower dole by €15 per week. The housing market is in freefall - lower rental supplements. Don't touch corporation tax.

Then resign from government and let somebody capable look after the nation's finances.

I agree with most of that, rent supplement is tiny though and doesn't pay most peoples rent as is.

The Dole is much higher. I don't know why that is (if I had to guess I would say it was because all of the unemployed get the rent supplement and it isn't means tested I imagine or some nonsense like that but I don't know that much about it).

All I know is it doesn't cover rents and I can't see why it isn't means tested. By having people pay some of their rent out of their dole money too, you have people living in rural areas with lower rents, getting more money essentially as their rents are lower so perhaps they can pay the entire amount out of rent allowance where as post people would struggle to do that.

I know I couldn't pay my rent out of the subsidy alone but I could come close and I'm in the commuter belt mostly because I moved house recently. It was also the cheapest listed on daft.ie at the time for this area.

Is there a reason rent allowance isn't means tested? You could probably reduce the dole by a fair bit if you did this as the rest would just be week by week household expenditure.

Dimitri

bobbbb wrote: »

Do you have any evidence that you can type anything else but the above line?

Do some work for yourself for a change.
Find out how much income for everyone in the whole country.
Take 10% of that. You multiply it by 0.1.

Then thats the extra tax take. You can play with any other taxes (give some back, take more etc) based on that number.

What about a person like me, if i was to pay an extra 10% in tax and saw an increase in fuel costs of any kind it simply would not be worth my while working, so i'd leave my job and cease to pay tax and instead decide to draw the dole, on top of that the company i work for have a complete hiring ban in place if someone leaves they are not being replaced so that formula is out the window i'm afraid!

I'd be very slow to increase the levy on public sector workers i agree we need to seriously cut our expenditure in a big hurry but stopping them spending will mean even more job losses and will onle exasperate the problems we are currently facing. How feasible would it be to sell the public owened companies as suggested by another poster? And how feasible is Richard Brutons' plan of using them to borrow and invest in their respective areas instead of the government borrowing to act as a stimulus plan? It appears to me that they are absolutely correct in saying we need to give some sort of shot in the arm to the country before we kill our economy completely but on the other hand will this off balance sheet borrowing end up being a disaster waiting to happen?

johnnyskeleton

Get rid of all the quangoes and other state/semi-state bodies that do not perform an essential service.

By essential I mean there would be chaos without them e.g. DPP.

Things like the Ombudsman for Children, the Road Safety Authority etc are nice, but given the choice between having them now and going bankrupt or scrapping them for the moment to save the country, I wouldn't think twice.

The more ridiculous things - the Youth Council, DDDA, railway procurement agency etc should be toast.

Cut the number of parliamentary aides in half or more, make politicians do their own research.

Cut as many managers from Health & Education as possible.

Reduce the number of junior ministries. Reduce all politican's pay.

Reduce all other civil servants pay by a small amount. Reduce garda pay slightly and reinstate overtime at a lesser rate.

Cull the army, navy and air farce.

Reduce all unnecessary expenditure. Give nothing more than statutory redundancy to those who are made redundant, save for those who are nearing pension age.

Look at every government expense, and unless you can say that the country won't work without it, get rid of it mercilessly and in one go.

A lot of these things would be politically unpopular, so at the same time, they would have to break the cartels (e.g. vintners, developers, taxi drivers etc), bring in tax increases and prosecute any corruption or mishandling of finances in the public or banking sectors. Let the public sector know that even though you are treating them badly, you could do much worse and are working to reduce costs across the country.

8% reduction in all social welfare payments, and tighten up on people who defraud social welfare by permanently blacklisting them. Reduce rent allowance payments (slum lords can like it or lump it). No more subsidies for property (get rid of TRS and Mortgage interest suppliment). If this means houses are repossessed, so be it.

That should shore up at least €6bn if done correctly. After that, you could raise taxes with the only concern being to maximise the tax take having regard to the laffer curve. If this means taxing the poor so be it. If taxing booze and smokes will increase the tax take, tax them. However, I suspect that a further increase in the price of a pint will mean a lot more people staying at home drinking tea.

All in all, the right decisions are there to be made, the problem is that the people who can make the decisions are reliant on public opinion to keep their jobs. You need to be an unpopular person to get the public finances back in order, and if you are unpopular, you won't be given a chance to get them back in order.

blast05

http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story/?trs=eymhcwkfid

Flamed Diving

lol!

leitrim lad

april fool ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,that was the best yet

mikemac

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Cull the army, navy and air farce.

We have an air corps, not an air force

And it's pretty threadbare as it is.
There would be many things I'd cut before I'd cut back on the defense forces.

If you did want to get more money, you could get the banks to pay the real cost of security of cash deliverys to banks.
At the moment, they make only make a contribution so the State is paying for this security.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

A lot of these things would be politically unpopular, so at the same time, they would have to break the cartels (e.g. vintners, developers, taxi drivers etc),

taxi driving was a cartel but no longer. Now it's one of the most open industries around. No 4 year degree or apprenticeship required here!

nesf

ongarite wrote: »

Cut dole & children allowance by €30 a week

Eh, I'll hazard a guess that you don't have any kids since child allowance at present starts at a princely €160 per month. So what, you're reducing it to 40 quid or so?

johnnyskeleton

mikemac wrote: »

We have an air corps, not an air force

And it's pretty threadbare as it is.
There would be many things I'd cut before I'd cut back on the defense forces.

Who is going to invade us? I'd rather have more cops than soldiers to be honest.

mikemac wrote: »

If you did want to get more money, you could get the banks to pay the real cost of security of cash deliverys to banks.
At the moment, they make only make a contribution so the State is paying for this security.

That's a fair point, although probably one for future reference rather than for the moment, when they don't have much money anyway. An even better solution would be for the banks' insurance companies to pick up the tab, but of course same problem.

mikemac wrote: »

taxi driving was a cartel but no longer. Now it's one of the most open industries around. No 4 year degree or apprenticeship required here!

The typical Irish solution to an Irish problem is to simply allow more people into certain professions. The result of this is not that taxi fares go down (they haven't), just that there are more taxis about, struggling to get work. We need the government to press for lower taxi fares, not increase them.

leitrim lad

one thingthat needs to be done away with is the tourist tax, we here in ireland have the finest in land waterways in the world, with the lakes ,canals ,rivers, and we need to exploit it in times like this, do away with the tourist tax and get the germans, french, uk,yankees,and ausiees.
them people love our country side and they love to think that there great great great great great grand parents might have possibly come from here, and this tourist tax is stopping them coming in ,just like the visa is stopping people going to america.
also the public sector must be reformed ,and i dont mean cutting out certain areas and joining up 2 services to make one all allrounder, get in and sack who ever is not pulling their weight ,on the spot no matter what title they hold,
cut the government to 80 seats,
drop vat rates, and offer special lifetime packages to big multinationals , on paye,corporation taxes, and so on.
nationalise braodband to every pothole in the country, and open a sme fund in anglo irish bank, the state bank to support sme operations who really prop up the country
as japan said if they had a national holiday like out st patricks day their economy would be the stringest in the world

Sqaull20

Cut wages of all goverment employees by 20% ( thats everyone, public sector, dole, other welfare payments, everything )

Drop diesel and petrol by 5c so companies and people can get to work.

Lower coperation tax.

Sort out every goverment department, the amount of managment/supervisors/sergeants and so on in every deparment doing nothing is beyond crazy, get them working for their money ie being doctors, guards on the street etc.

Sort out the ESB ( big problem ), deluded idiots gave themselves pay rises and companies are closing because they cant pay the feckin bill.Companies electricity bills are an absolute disgrace.

Raise Tax on all alcoholic drinks in supermarkets/off licenses, raise fags,

Leave tax rates and Vat alone.

Forget about the housing market for now, set new conditions on mortagages eg 20- 22% of mortgage payment upfront not 8% or whatever it is now, same with cars.

Bring back some kind of College fees for everyone.

Charge for Water, but not for businesses.

johnnyskeleton

leitrim lad wrote: »

one thingthat needs to be done away with is the tourist tax, we here in ireland have the finest in land waterways in the world, with the lakes ,canals ,rivers, and we need to exploit it in times like this, do away with the tourist tax and get the germans, french, uk,yankees,and ausiees.
them people love our country side and they love to think that there great great great great great grand parents might have possibly come from here, and this tourist tax is stopping them coming in ,just like the visa is stopping people going to america.

What is this tourist tax that you speak of? AFAIK, non EU tourists get tax breaks in that they are exempt from VAT in certain places.

leitrim lad wrote: »

cut the government to 80 seats,

Symbolically good, but wouldn't save a whole lot of money. For every politican, there is a host of civil servants, parliamentary aides, committes and quangoes who are costing the state a fortune. That's where you make the real deep cuts.

leitrim lad

i agree they say houses have dropped and i quote 30%
when infact i know where houses fully finished can be bought for 50k ,2 years ago they were 375k
auctioneers,estate agents,and so on are liars and wonkors, bluffers
the esb is a state owned company , and is board gais not also a state owned company who can sell the esbs power cheaper than the esb, yes i think that deserves a pay rise (sarcasm)
1 in 5 public sector workers will tell you that they only go to work to kill time , so just simply kill their service ,that will give them more time to think about how they will waste tax payers money, and compare our social to the uks social ours is 4 times greater in the amount so that can be adjusted slightly,
also i think revenue would generate the 8 billion alone if they focused on auditing every solicitor and barrister in the country ,because they mainly operate in undeclared cash, ar whatever rate per hour they feel like

leitrim lad

im not sure of the exact cost to each tourist ,but every holidayer to the country has to pay a tax to enter the country, that is one of the reasons as to why ryanair are cutting jobs in dublin airport

Diarmuid

Dimitri wrote: »

What about a person like me, if i was to pay an extra 10% in tax and saw an increase in fuel costs of any kind it simply would not be worth my while working, so i'd leave my job and cease to pay tax and instead decide to draw the dole,?

You might change your mind if the dole was cut by 10+% though?

Diarmuid

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The typical Irish solution to an Irish problem is to simply allow more people into certain professions. The result of this is not that taxi fares go down (they haven't), just that there are more taxis about, struggling to get work. We need the government to press for lower taxi fares, not increase them.

yea, open market deregulation to a closed cartel, that's a real Irish solution all right.

And you say the only impact is just that there is more taxis. That was the whole point, before the deregulation it would take 1-2hrs looking for a taxi to get home on a night out. Not any more. The fares are not especially high in Ireland in comparison to other European countries, but are regulated so maybe that's keeping them artificially high to what they could be in the current depressed market.

leitrim lad

i am led to belive that we have more taxis than new york,which has 10 times our population, so that trade is a non runner,stop giving out licences,i know men who are taxiists the last 25 years and they are sick of going out for €3.50 a night and thats a good night,
if the dole was cut by 10% it would drrive people either way,
1. they could say f it and get their self esteem back and find a job thats better paying than the dole.
or
2.a cut in the dole could depress people even more with all the pressure theyc would be under, ie ,bills ,morgage,kids etc

thebman

leitrim lad wrote: »

i am led to belive that we have more taxis than new york,which has 10 times our population, so that trade is a non runner,stop giving out licences,i know men who are taxiists the last 25 years and they are sick of going out for €3.50 a night and thats a good night,
if the dole was cut by 10% it would drrive people either way,
1. they could say f it and get their self esteem back and find a job thats better paying than the dole.
or
2.a cut in the dole could depress people even more with all the pressure theyc would be under, ie ,bills ,morgage,kids etc

I can't believe we have more than NY.

I have seen them queued past the length of the rank in Liffey Vally but I don't believe it is that many.

If they aren't making money then they'll get out of it. Why would you keep doing a job if you weren't making money from it?

That is the whole point of not limiting the number of plates. Supply and demand dictates it. I think an education program for the public that they can choose which taxi at the rank they get into would be the best policy so we could actually get people using the newer, cleaner taxis and the ones with Satnavs that might have a hope of reaching the persons destination (not a problem for me since I don't use taxis but if I did, I live in an easy to find place).

Diarmuid

leitrim lad wrote: »

i am led to belive that we have more taxis than new york,which has 10 times our population, so that trade is a non runner,stop giving out licences,i know men who are taxiists the last 25 years and they are sick of going out for €3.50 a night and thats a good night,

Comparing to the NY taxi situation is a bad idea. It's a very heavily regulated market and not something to model yourself on. NY has 13k taxis and 40k other cars for hire (53k total) in comparison to Dublin, which has 13244 total.

I feel sorry for someone who is struggling to make a living, but you have to understand that it's an extremely low skilled industry with minimal capital costs. Why would you expect it to be well paid? I don't see limits on the numbers of carpenters, brick layers, engineers, etc to prop up their income, why are taxi drivers different?

Flamed Diving

thebman wrote: »

I can't believe we have more than NY.

I have seen them queued past the length of the rank in Liffey Vally but I don't believe it is that many.

If they aren't making money then they'll get out of it. Why would you keep doing a job if you weren't making money from it?

That is the whole point of not limiting the number of plates. Supply and demand dictates it. I think an education program for the public that they can choose which taxi at the rank they get into would be the best policy so we could actually get people using the newer, cleaner taxis and the ones with Satnavs that might have a hope of reaching the persons destination (not a problem for me since I don't use taxis but if I did, I live in an easy to find place).

http://www.metroeireann.com/article/rank-rumours-as-transport-minister,1684

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_New_York_City#Taxis

nesf

thebman wrote: »

I think an education program for the public that they can choose which taxi at the rank they get into would be the best policy so we could actually get people using the newer, cleaner taxis and the ones with Satnavs that might have a hope of reaching the persons destination (not a problem for me since I don't use taxis but if I did, I live in an easy to find place).

In Cork anyway it's the taxi drivers who enforce the queueing system rather than the public. You don't have a choice but to take the first car in the queue.

Flamed Diving

nesf wrote: »

In Cork anyway it's the taxi drivers who enforce the queueing system rather than the public. You don't have a choice but to take the first car in the queue.

In Cork? You sure?

nesf

Flamed Diving wrote: »

In Cork? You sure?

Yup, at most of the ranks, especially at the bus and train station. They'll tell you to go to the cab at the front of the rank if you get into a different one normally.

Flamed Diving

nesf wrote: »

Yup, at most of the ranks, especially at the bus and train station. They'll tell you to go to the cab at the front of the rank if you get into a different one normally.

Ah yeah. But on Patricks Street, there appears to be no such system.

thebman

nesf wrote: »

Yup, at most of the ranks, especially at the bus and train station. They'll tell you to go to the cab at the front of the rank if you get into a different one normally.

That doesn't make it seem like they are in trouble financially if they are asking people not to take fares with them.

Flamed Diving

thebman wrote: »

That doesn't make it seem like they are in trouble financially if they are asking people not to take fares with them.

Ah, come on.

It's a civilised (and fair) means of distributing the fares. What do you want them to be doing, fighting to the death?

:rolleyes:

Diarmuid

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Ah, come on.

It's a civilised (and fair) means of distributing the fares. What do you want them to be doing, fighting to the death?

:rolleyes:

How about letting the customer decide? You know, LIKE EVERY OTHER BUSINESS!

thebman

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Ah, come on.

It's a civilised (and fair) means of distributing the fares. What do you want them to be doing, fighting to the death?

:rolleyes:

So the customer doesn't have the right to chose the best taxi at the rank if they wish?

That is fair on the customer isn't it? What if the car isn't in good condition and there is a better newer car at the rank?

What if there is an accident and they were ordered by the people in the rank not to get in the car with air bags and are seriously injured?

It would be just as civilised to let the customer get in the taxi they want to get into. There doesn't have to be any fight to the death, just the best taxi's get the fairs.

nesf

thebman wrote: »

That doesn't make it seem like they are in trouble financially if they are asking people not to take fares with them.

It's one of those systems that works so long as every taxi driver opts into it. Doesn't really bother me tbh.