TDs surrendering salary to charities

ixtlan

Watching Questions and Answers last night I saw the usual arguments about politicans "taking pain" or not.

Fergus O'Dowd, Fine Gael TD, explained how he had given up a portion of his salary and was "donating it to charity". Dermot Ahearn commented that this was not saving the taxpayer anything.

I'm unhappy with this position of Fergus.

Let me start by saying that, yes he is making a sacrifice... and yes there are others that are not. However I would be very interested to know what charity he is contributing to, and what connections that charity has to his constituency. To be clear I am not suggesting anything out of line. I'm sure it's a valid charity, doing good work, well respected etc. My concern is that he may be using the loss of the salary as a tool to gain good will in the community. This isn't illegal of course, but there's a serious ethical issue here. If he foregoes this salary in the context of serious burdens on the public finances, he suggests that all TDs/senators should do the same (and I understand he does suggest this). However from a certain point of view, he is diverting money from the taxpayers (who would have got the benefit if the money reverted to Revenue) and sending it to a charity of his choosing with the expected goodwill benefits going to him.

If this model was accepted by all politicans none of them would give up any salary to Revenue at all. Why give it back when you can buy good will among your voters?

Am I being overly cynical perhaps?

Ix.

BroomBurner

Sorry to possibly add to your cynism, but aren't charitable donations tax write-offs??

nesf

Well, at the end of the day we don't want politicians to feel the pain as much as we want to save the taxpayer money (the politician feeling the pain is a nice bonus to this). So in this sense we want pay cuts not people donating money to charity.

O'Coonassa

ixtlan wrote: »

Am I being overly cynical perhaps?

You're barely getting started TBH.

turgon

BroomBurner wrote: »

aren't charitable donations tax write-offs??

Yes - 72% back if you pay the higher level of income tax, which TD's pay I would imagine. You get the money if your self assessed, the charity gets the money if your PAYE. I dont know how TD's are payed.

You get 36% back if on the lower band of income tax.

You have to give more than €250 to the same charity for this to work, which no doubt hes doing.

ixtlan

Yikes... I am a bit slow...

I suspect most TD's are self-accessed. I am myself despite 95% of my income being PAYE.

So if he was self-accessed he would have to contribute quite a lot extra to compensate for the tax refund he would get.

It is really sad that we are so cynical. Actually I have a lot of respect for politicans, but they are so poor at communicating/leading.

I'd love to get an answer to this...

ix.

turgon

ixtlan wrote: »

So if he was self-accessed he would have to contribute quite a lot extra to compensate for the tax refund he would get.

Well not really. He could honestly say that 50% of his income was going to charity, while "forgetting" to mention the tax rebate.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Fergus was talking Bull. I voted for him last time round but can't agree with his stance here. Donating to charity does not save the state one penny and he's using it to promote himself no matter how you look at it. Giving to any charity has to raise his profile. I'd love to forego the levy and decide on what charity I'll give my money to.
It's a con if he thionks he can fool anybody with the line he took last night. I'm disappointed in him.:(