Garlic to placate the beards by taxing the wealthy.

Rujib1

Listened to the Jack the beard O Connor this morning on Newstalk, trying to justify his way out of future strikes in the public sector over the looming pay cuts.
He basically as much as said there would be no such strikes if the beards and their members saw a wealth / income tax on the wealthy. Such a tax would need to generate a sum of over €750 million to €1 billion, and be distributed to the less well off!

So is this how Garlicman will sooth the rash on the backside of the public sector? Bring in this new tax even though he has said the opposite all year long!

Could probably call such a new tax "the beard rash tax" :cool:

R1

spaceballs

A very basic explanation of the tax system, but a good way of showing why this would never work:

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men; the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Tax increases work in the same way as cuts, the person paying the most shouldn't be pushed to pick up the whole bill because they are the ones who can afford to just walk away!

Scofflaw

I may not agree with what most people would regard as the obvious corollaries of the parable above, but it's a very good parable all the same.

pleased,
Scofflaw

nice_guy80

spaceballs wrote: »

A very basic explanation of the tax system, but a good way of showing why this would never work:



Tax increases work in the same way as cuts, the person paying the most shouldn't be pushed to pick up the whole bill because they are the ones who can afford to just walk away!

why would they go oversees?
they are Irish citizens and work here.
going abroad would mean they'd have no job
they'd also quickly realise other countries actually have proper tax systems

egan007

The top 1.57 per cent of earners (34,000 people) are expected to pay 32.5 per cent of all the income tax collected from the 2.1 million workers paying tax in 2010.The top 1 per cent of earners will pay an average of €119,000 in income tax next year.

http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/high-earners-pay-nearly-half-of-all-income-tax-45532.html

What beardie does not seem to understand is that without the rich we would be very very F*......d

maggy_thatcher

nice_guy80 wrote: »

why would they go oversees?
they are Irish citizens and work here.
going abroad would mean they'd have no job
they'd also quickly realise other countries actually have proper tax systems

1. Not all of them are Irish Citizens. Some are executives for multinationals, with enough influence to move factories (taking jobs with them)
2. Some are self-employed, and can do the same work in other countries
3. Look at what Bono did -- moved to Amsterdam because the tax bill was too high here.

wtk2007

I'd love to know how they agreed where to eat, Mr 59% would never be seen slumming it in Supermacs.