where is all the money?

El chapucero

Why can't the Government introduce a retrospective Celtic Tiger tax on retained money earned on land/property sales during the boom years?
A lot of this money must still be on deposit.
If a person sold land/property for say 10 million then why not collect 80% of that in tax and leave the person with 20% which is still a lot of money and worth more than it was a few years ago?
Surely this is better than imposing axes and consequent hardship on already struggling families. It is in the National Interest.
Or is all the money that was borrowed and paid for land etc already gone?

andrew

Moved to Irish Economy

RichardAnd

If a person made 10 million on land during the boom then I say well done to to them for being one of the lucky/wise ones that got out of the market before it crashed. Taking 8 million of that 10 million from the said person would be little more than stealing in my eyes.

It's a total non starter.

irishh_bob

El chapucero wrote: »

Why can't the Government introduce a retrospective Celtic Tiger tax on retained money earned on land/property sales during the boom years?
A lot of this money must still be on deposit.
If a person sold land/property for say 10 million then why not collect 80% of that in tax and leave the person with 20% which is still a lot of money and worth more than it was a few years ago?
Surely this is better than imposing axes and consequent hardship on already struggling families. It is in the National Interest.
Or is all the money that was borrowed and paid for land etc already gone?

the majority of people ( speculators and developers ) who sold land for ten million back in the day , reinvested the proceeds in more property , not only that , a lot of them borrowed another ten million along with the money they had themselves , now thier twenty million piece of land is worth the price of regular agricultural land , very few simply left thier windfalls on deposit in a bank

Godge

Heard a story recently.

Back in 2006, developer bought a piece of land (a farm) on the outskirts of a midlands town for €10m, with borrowed money, a common enough occurrence around then.

Farmer took the €10m, invested most of it, bought a big house in the town with a mortgage as he wanted to invest most of the money.

Two years later, developer approaches farmer, who he has heard is doing well with his investments, and offers to sell back the land for €5m. Farmer, happy with his lot, turns him down. Six months later, €2m. Further on, developer offers it back for €1m. Farmer says no again. Developer says, you are killing me, I am heading into NAMA, this land is now worthless.

farmer says, look I don't have the money anymore. I started off owning a farm, I now have a house, a big house all right which is worth less than the outstanding mortgage but the rest of the money was invested in bank shares and is now gone.

So neither the developer nor the farmer have anything left. The house of cards collapsed and the taxpayer has been left holding the bill.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Yahew

RichardAnd wrote: »

If a person made 10 million on land during the boom then I say well done to to them for being one of the lucky/wise ones that got out of the market before it crashed. Taking 8 million of that 10 million from the said person would be little more than stealing in my eyes.

It's a total non starter.

Stealing my arse, no more than any tax, less than tax on labour. We should tax the bejusus out of zero sum gains in wealth.

AlekSmart

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

This vigniette illustrates to a great degree what exactly made our boom different....

Our people were cuter,more savvy and downright possessed of financial talents never before seen on this earth.

It did'nt seem to matter that these hyper-savvy investors and super-cute hoors were in actuality Farmers,Shopkeepers,Teachers,Tradesmen and not particularly spectacular examples of these either..

It's mess of incredible proportions,but one in which much of the baking and mixing was done voluntarily by exhuberant and totally reckless Individuals who,as Permabear sez,totally refused to listen to any warnings from any source.

RichardAnd

Yahew wrote: »

Stealing my arse, no more than any tax, less than tax on labour. We should tax the bejusus out of zero sum gains in wealth.

It's nothing like another tax because it wouldn't be a tax at all. A tax, though I can hardly call it magnanimous, is a person paying their due to society. What the OP suggested would be akin to Enda Kenny walking into a bank this afternoon and helping himself to a sizable chunk of my savings; stealing.

What is it that makes you think the state has a mandate or even a moral right to tax wealth? If a person earns millions due to their own intelligence and buisness acumen, are they not entitled to keep what they created for themselves? If you started taking away the proceeds of buisness, I doubt anyone would bother setting on up here at all.

What was the quote from the start of Bioshock? Is a man not the owner of the sweat on his brow? Well I think he is.

RichardAnd

AlekSmart wrote: »

Our people were cuter,more savvy and downright possessed of financial talents never before seen on this earth.

You're right, we were and I call it the state of being a financial magician. Watch and marvel as the Irish people make another few billion disappear !

Scofflaw

It wouldn't necessarily be a retrospective tax, though - it's just a wealth tax. There's no point in levying it on those who no longer have the money in any case.

cordially,
Scofflaw

amen

What the OP suggested would be akin to Enda Kenny walking into a bank this afternoon and helping himself to a sizable chunk of my savings; stealing.

well thats what the government did with private pension schemes this year.

RichardAnd

amen wrote: »

well thats what the government did with private pension schemes this year.

Exactly, which was wrong.

Godge

We have a sort of a wealth tax - Capital Gains Tax.

However, yield from it is likely to be low for many years as capital losses can be offset against gains and those capital losses can be rolled over from year to year. One useful revenue change would be to limit the rollover of capital losses. Apart from preventing revenue loss, it could have the unintentional effect of increasing activity in asset markets, particularly commercial and residential property markets.

irishh_bob

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

and would you advise someone ( who has recently sold a west of ireland farm they inherited from a dotty uncle ) to invest property proceeds in gold today ?:D

Manach

Perhaps it is time for tulips again. I so happen to have some fine bulbs ...

El chapucero

If the money was invested in bank shares or other property somebody must have all this money that was lent out and handed over for these shares or whatever- or else it is all gone out of the country to Asia or America in other investments.
The part I fail to understand,probably because of my limited economics knowledge, is that the money was not destroyed and so somebody must have it and if all our banks and some of us EU countries are broke then has the chain of reinvestment moved all the wealth to some other continent or place ?
Could it be that the country and a big percentage of the citizens are broke but there is huge private wealth held by a small percentage of citizens and is there an official measure of this balance?

irishh_bob

El chapucero wrote: »

If the money was invested in bank shares or other property somebody must have all this money that was lent out and handed over for these shares or whatever- or else it is all gone out of the country to Asia or America in other investments.
The part I fail to understand,probably because of my limited economics knowledge, is that the money was not destroyed and so somebody must have it and if all our banks and some of us EU countries are broke then has the chain of reinvestment moved all the wealth to some other continent or place ?
Could it be that the country and a big percentage of the citizens are broke but there is huge private wealth held by a small percentage of citizens and is there an official measure of this balance?

have you any idea how much bank shares have lost since 2007 , nothing less than 90% in the case of every irish bank , wealth disapears all the time , the global stock market lost hundreds of billions in the month of august alone

PennyLane88

bertie ahern has our money spent at the races, and being chauffeured around the place like a lord.