First Post

johnnyskeleton

W00t etc!!!

My predictions:

Spending
Govt will back down on €6bn and reduce to €4.5-5bn.
Govt won't touch state pension
Social welfare basic rate reduced by €10-16 e.g. down to c. €180
Child benefit to be taxed, but only at 20% rate
Proposal for clampdown on welfare fraud to save c. €500m but won't actually when enforcement is taken into account
All government contracts to be reduced by a further 8%
Overtime and recruitment embargo maintained
No quangos cut but some more merged (with no redundancies)
Expensive voluntary redundancy programme for HSE which will cost more than keeping on the staff, but which through a trick of accounting will be off balance sheet through the NPRF and so will artificially reduce current spending
Capital programme cut yet again - no metro north, no new projects
PS pay cut by 5% at the bottom, and 8% at the top
Ministerial pay cut by 10%, TD pay cut by 5%

Taxes
PRSI up to 10% for the self employed (but still no benefits)
Tax credits reduced by c. 10% e.g. from 1830 to 1650 personal credits
Tax bands reduced by a small amount (just a few hundred)
Higher rate up by 3%
CGT & CAT up by 5%
Stamp reduced (to encourage housebuying)
PPR tax of €150 flat rate

Other
Water charges
Fossil fuel levy on electricity
Increase carbon tax 5c on litre petrol
No increase alcohol and tobacco

I suppose this is apt.

Kent Brockman: "Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?"
Professor: "Yes I would, Kent."

Dannyboy83

SMEAR!

r3nu4l

This should be a fun forum

Bottle_of_Smoke

Dónal wrote: »

I suppose this is apt.

Kent Brockman: "Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?"
Professor: "Yes I would, Kent."

I can't help but hear that in Joe Duffy and David McWilliam's voices

sollar

Lenihan said in last years budget address that he will be introducing a social contribution tax in this years budget.

I'm interested to see who it will hit the hardest, low paid, middle income or well paid people.

DrumSteve

sollar wrote: »

Lenihan said in last years budget address that he will be introducing a social contribution tax in this years budget.

I'm interested to see who it will hit the hardest, low paid, middle income or well paid people.

Dont we pay that already? Through PRSI...

enda1

So when's the budget anyway?
And by the way, it's budget 2011, not 2010. 2010 was published on 9th December 2009.

Nody

r3nu4l wrote: »

This should be a fun forum

Best part is by far the live comment thread on the budget presentation... You usually get 3+ pages per line presented.

johnnyskeleton

enda1 wrote: »

So when's the budget anyway?
And by the way, it's budget 2011, not 2010. 2010 was published on 9th December 2009.

Unless of course it is a retrospective forum about the halcyon days of Budget 2010, when all they had to cut was a mere €4bn.

the groutch

sollar wrote: »

Lenihan said in last years budget address that he will be introducing a social contribution tax in this years budget.

or if you want to give it's correct name, Levy Nua

COYW

sollar wrote: »

Lenihan said in last years budget address that he will be introducing a social contribution tax in this years budget.

I'm interested to see who it will hit the hardest, low paid, middle income or well paid people.

I think its safe to say that the middle income earner will be hit the hardest in every aspect of the budget. The lower income earners will get some token cuts which will be made out to be the end of the world and the high earners will get their accountants to work around any charges imposed on them. Im preparing for a proper hammering as a middle income earner.

namenotavailablE

I have uploaded a 'fantasy Budget 2011 calculator' which people might be interested in trying out.

It's only available in Excel 2007 format- sorry, but it won't work in either earlier or even later formats (temporary rant: particularly annoying re not being able to use it in Excel 2010).

It allows you to tweak PAYE rates, levies, credits and standard rate bands and then evaluate the results of you playing the role of "Minister for Hardship". There's a rudimentary help system and guidance included- that aspect is not yet fully developed and remains a work-in-progress- but hopefully it will be enough to help users make the changes correctly.

I'll periodically monitor this thread and would be happy to receive any constructive feedback on the calculator or try to address queries raised. Alternatively, PM me here or use the email address included in the calculator's menu.

To download the calculator, see here

Shiny

Surely it isn't necessary to create separate forum for this?

MagicMarker

Shiny wrote: »

Surely it isn't necessary to create separate forum for this?

Shut up, that's why!! :pac:

thebman

Shiny wrote: »

Surely it isn't necessary to create separate forum for this?

I can think of about 6 billion reasons for this forum :P

We don't' really need to pollute the Irish Economy forum with my "insert benefit here" should not be cut threads given the other problems the state faces.

I'd like to be able to filter those threads from the other threads please as usually if I want to read one kind, I don't want to read the other

ISAW

Nody wrote: »

Best part is by far the live comment thread on the budget presentation... You usually get 3+ pages per line presented.

a sure fire way to identify the paid party hacks with pre prepared info and replies from the real posters. Note the ones with the perfect grammar, spelling ( or imperfect spell checking they did yesterday in the party office) and pre prepared tables and charts. Mark them down for future reference.

themadchef

Yay!


This is as close to budget porn as it gets for me

Great idea