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Garda Sergeant can't afford food

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 43,271 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Tombo2001 wrote: »

    The fact of the matter is that the pension deduction is very large, and unlike the private sector it is not tax deductible, and unlike the private sector it is non-discretionary.

    I think it is Tax deductible, ASTI agrees with me, ASTI

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    12vdc wrote: »
    If any one here has gone through mabs they will know how forensically competent they are in sifting through the bs
    EVERY cent you get in and every red cent you owe is accounted for
    A mabs spokesperson has confirmed that this family are broke
    What's the difficulty?

    The difficulty is that this guy is making more than me and my husband combined, with the same mortgage repayments.

    Yet they claim they can't put food on the table, while we consider ourselves a happy middle-income family, with money to save at the end of each month.

    There has to be something in the article they're not telling us, for example additional debt.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,676 ✭✭✭strandroad


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    Where'd you come up with 10k overtime.....why not just make it 100k if you are going to make up figures.

    They said themselves he's on 75k with overtime.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,396 ✭✭✭Tombo2001


    K-9 wrote: »
    I think it is Tax deductible, ASTI agrees with me, ASTI


    It is not tax deductible, that is a fact.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 38,035 Mod ✭✭✭✭Gumbo


    Irishcrx wrote: »
    A person on the dole earns at €180 a week earns €8,640 year and may still have to try support a mortgage and family. Seriously f**k off Mr.Sergent.

    Dont you get mortgage relief when on the dole too?
    My GF did when she was let go, and no medical bills due to a medical card.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 6,396 ✭✭✭Tombo2001


    mhge wrote: »
    They said themselves he's on 75k with overtime.


    "Her husband has gross earnings of more than €65,000 – including allowances and unsocial hours coverage. After tax, Universal Social Charge, pension, health insurance, mortgage and utility deductions, a typical weekly payslip shows a net payment of €109."

    Total income at €65 including allowances.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,670 ✭✭✭Rascasse


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    Total income at €65 including allowances.
    How can this happen to a family with an annual income of about €75,000 gross (including overtime and allowances) last year?

    Its 75k including overtime.


  • Registered Users Posts: 363 ✭✭CONSI


    Someone has quoted the figure of €20k a year after mortgage payments out not being a lot to live on. It's more than enough to be honest. It doesn't give you a great standard of living and you'll have to give up the nights out etc but bills are paid, food on table and still with Sky and broadband.

    They have to be servicing other debt, credit cards etc to have nothing left for food. I've said €600 a month for groceries, plenty if you plan and buy ahead. I do a 2 monthly meat shop at my butcher, great produce and cheaper than tesco/dunnes and also have something in the freezer to work with

    1650 €20k / 12

    120 mobiles
    50 broadband
    50 sky
    600 Groceries
    150 Gas.ESB
    600 Petrol/Diesel
    80 Other


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,676 ✭✭✭strandroad


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    "Her husband has gross earnings of more than €65,000 – including allowances and unsocial hours coverage. After tax, Universal Social Charge, pension, health insurance, mortgage and utility deductions, a typical weekly payslip shows a net payment of €109."

    Total income at €65 including allowances.

    How can this happen to a family with an annual income of about €75,000 gross (including overtime and allowances) last year? To a Garda officer in possession of that holy grail of the permanent, pensionable, public sector job?
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1017/1224325338822.html

    May or may not include children's allowance.


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,271 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    It is not tax deductible, that is a fact.

    Well MagicSean a Guard himself I believe, must be wrong too here, and ASTI so maybe you can link to these facts?

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 639 ✭✭✭Shivers26


    I'm baffled why they can't live on that wage. Between myself and my husband our combined gross pay would be close to their €65k

    My husband is public sector and I am private sector. Yes, there have been a lot of cuts to his wages and it sucks but we have learned to live with it. At least he has a job etc etc

    We live in a very modest 3 bed house, we have 1 car between us (a clapped out Ford that badly needs to be changed but we'll squeeze another year out of her), we pay creche fees, have the fast broadband and digital tv, all the usual utilities and we are definitely not starving. They must have other debts. We can afford to treat ourselves to a few luxuries now and then and go on a foreign holiday most years.

    You could fill a trolly to bursting point in Lidl for €109!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    mhge wrote: »
    How can this happen to a family with an annual income of about €75,000 gross (including overtime and allowances) last year? To a Garda officer in possession of that holy grail of the permanent, pensionable, public sector job?
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1017/1224325338822.html

    May or may not include children's allowance.

    A pension in 25 years is no help to someone paying their bills today.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,396 ✭✭✭Tombo2001


    K-9 wrote: »
    Well MagicSean a Guard himself I believe, must be wrong too here, and ASTI so maybe you can link to these facts?


    This doesnt say that its tax deductible.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,456 ✭✭✭fishy fishy


    i despair of a family cannot live on 65K per year (not counting her income). And yet, and yet, we have people complaining that people cannot live on the dole. :roll eyes:

    They are obviously living way beyond their means- they bit off more than they could chew and now they are paying for it. Even with a 1,400 mortgage per month they should be able to survive especially if there are two incomes coming in. It could be that they can't survive HOW THEY WOULD WISH. But then again, nobody is surviving how they would WISH. We all have to muddle through, even people on 10 K per year.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    MagicSean wrote: »
    It's not suitable for calculating a Gardas wage. Here's my own calculations.

    Net pay after basic deductions €36,118.55

    Good table. Can we have the actual deductions from net pay so we can finally find out why this family is starving? (Also, does the wife have any income?!)


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,396 ✭✭✭Tombo2001


    Shivers26 wrote: »
    I'm baffled why they can't live on that wage. Between myself and my husband our combined gross pay would be close to their €65k

    My husband is public sector and I am private sector. Yes, there have been a lot of cuts to his wages and it sucks but we have learned to live with it. At least he has a job etc etc

    We live in a very modest 3 bed house, we have 1 car between us (a clapped out Ford that badly needs to be changed but we'll squeeze another year out of her), we pay creche fees, have the fast broadband and digital tv, all the usual utilities and we are definitely not starving. They must have other debts. We can afford to treat ourselves to a few luxuries now and then and go on a foreign holiday most years.

    You could fill a trolly to bursting point in Lidl for €109!!

    when you say close, do you mean close above or below?

    whats your mortgage?

    but look, I take your point.

    They may be very poor money managers.

    They may have expectations that "things should be better than this".

    But they should be able at the very least survive on what they earn.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 655 ✭✭✭hyperborean


    Its just another tactic to try and reduce the publics interest/concern in taxpayers outlay for the PS, primarily pay,pensions,allowances and incriments during this time of budgetary overspend.
    You will see another 100 similiar stories before the budget just to reduce the public Ire when PS allowances and the likes are ignored again....

    The poor mouth its called were I come from, used to be farmers now its the poor double average waged PS workers,


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,271 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    This doesnt say that its tax deductible.

    It does, pension levy is deducted from gross to arrive at taxable pay, then the taxable pay is taxed, not gross. It's exactly like how pension deductions are handled for private sector workers or the self employed. Anyway, you should get onto ASTI, the teachers have incorrect information according to you.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,569 ✭✭✭2ndcoming


    Just to give you a rough -based on basic only spouse working - breakdown figures wise so you can then argue amongst yourselves:

    Gross pay 65,000 -
    Less pension 3,900 -
    Pension levy 3,900 -
    Medical Aid 4055 -
    Taxable 53145 -
    41,800 @ 20% 8360.00
    11,345 @ 41% 4651.45 -
    Gross Tax 13011.45 -
    Less credits 4950.00 -
    Tax payable 8061.45 -
    USC payable 3868.80 -
    Net pay 41214.75 -Less mortgage 16,800 -
    Remaining 24,414.75 -
    Weekly 469.51 -

    Throw in a couple of loans, utilities and TV etc her figure of 109 weekly isn't off the wall. Not giving an opinion on it either way, not getting dragged into these mudfight. Herself should definitely think about getting a part-time job.


  • Registered Users Posts: 465 ✭✭Undercover Elephant


    Thing is, even if this family are really bad at budgeting or have personal debts they're not telling us about, there's still a real problem. If you assume net pay of €37,500, they are spending 44% of their net income on their mortgage. That's before doing any maintenance or paying household charge / property tax.

    That's far too much by any reasonable standard. And given that they are probably paying around 4% while the Irish government has to borrow at 7%, an interest rate shock leaves them totally scuppered, with the best budgeting in the world.

    €36k stamp duty and €1400 monthly repayment suggests they bought for €600k with a 90-95% mortgage. That's more than the average, but it's not exceptional for a 4 bed semi in 2005. They are likely in more than €150k negative equity.

    The basic point is that there must be a lot of people who appear to be on good incomes but who are very exposed, even without any non-mortgage debt. People on average incomes, or who have lost jobs, are in an even worse position. I don't see how this can continue without some enormous write-downs. Personal responsibility at some point becomes a secondary consideration.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    gurramok wrote: »
    Good table. Can we have the actual deductions from net pay so we can finally find out why this family is starving? (Also, does the wife have any income?!)

    The deductions from net pay are different for each individual. Standard for most sergeants would have been life assurance, critical illness, medical aid, and AGSI membership. You're looking at €100 per week there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    MagicSean wrote: »
    It's not suitable for calculating a Gardas wage. Here's my own calculations.

    Gross pay €47,314.95
    Rent allowance €4,113.75
    Boot allowance €123.04
    Uniform allowance €226.00
    Saturday allowance €538.46
    Sunday allowance €4,367.53
    Evening allowance €554.82
    Night allowance €5,392.84
    Total Income €62,631.39

    Pension levy 5% 15001 -20,000 €250.00
    Pension levy 10% up to 60k €4,000.00
    Pension levy 10.5% on over 60k €276.30
    Total pension levy €4,526.30

    Taxable Income €58,105.09

    PRSI (4% over 6,604) €2,060.04
    USC 2% on €10,036 €200.72
    USC 4% up to €16,016 €239.20
    USC 7% over €16,016 €2,946.24
    PAYE 20% €6,560.00
    PAYE 41% €7,075.09
    Pension contribution 5% €2,905.25
    Basic Deductions €21,986.54

    Net pay after basic deductions €36,118.55

    Ehh why do you get a rent allowance ?
    Are you living away from your family home ?
    Do you work nights, evenings, weekends ?
    Do you get paid extra on top of these allowances for each weekend, night you work ?
    Is there a max number of weekends, nights that you must or can only work for these allowances ?

    BTW you talk about your pension levies, so tell us are you going to get a defined benefit pension that is a percentage of your exit salary ?
    Are you going to receive a tax free lump sum on exit ?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 639 ✭✭✭Shivers26


    Tombo2001 wrote: »
    when you say close, do you mean close above or below?

    whats your mortgage?

    but look, I take your point.

    They may be very poor money managers.

    They may have expectations that "things should be better than this".

    But they should be able at the very least survive on what they earn.

    When I said close, it's actually about the same.

    Our mortgage is approx €800 per month so a good deal lower than theirs. At one point though we were struggling with the repayments and we contacted the bank and they were very helpful and gave us plenty of options to help with payments. I have heard of people paying mortgages of €2500 per month which is both mind boggling and scary. They are far from the worst off.

    They may have expectations that "things should be better than this" - I wonder is this more what is going on here? Maybe this lady has a perception of what her level of wealth is and what her lifestyle should be and things are just not adding up.

    Most people had to make cuts to their lifestyle with the recession and you have to live within your means, end of story. Petrol is expensive so my husband got a bike through that cycle to work scheme and he cycles most days and I always used public transport. Why is it food that they can't afford? Get rid of a gym membership or a golf club membership. These things are very unnecessary luxuries. There has to be something else that they can sacrifice rather than flipping food!


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    Maybe I'm reading it incorrecty, but the article seems to state that after all taxes and bills and mortgage and insurance are deducted, they have €109 a week in discretionary income. How the feck is that struggling? What kind of food do they buy- caviar stuffed with gold leaf?? Seriously, I don't understand their complaint. :confused:


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 34,915 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    Not only that but they spend 400 out of that 109 leaving them with a few hundred more outgoing than incoming.


  • Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭GUIGuy


    There a few few here saying that they've combined gross incomes similar or slightly less than his... his take home will be far less than yours. Since tax indivualisation you can only take half your spouses tax credits but not any of their bands. A little playing with tax calculators show two spouses earning 26k each end up with a similar take home pay as a single married person earning 65k. Those who earn 32k each would take home close to 600 more per month.

    http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/Default.aspx


  • Registered Users Posts: 249 ✭✭slarkin123


    Fishooks12 wrote: »

    The internet is pretty crucial to education these days

    Completely pathetic insinuation that the children would just use it for facebook too btw

    My son in 3rd class has to use Google as part of his homework. I thought it was a bit strange.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭ilovesleep


    I'm going to quote this because I think it's worth repeating.
    Thing is, even if this family are really bad at budgeting or have personal debts they're not telling us about, there's still a real problem. If you assume net pay of €37,500, they are spending 44% of their net income on their mortgage. That's before doing any maintenance or paying household charge / property tax.

    That's far too much by any reasonable standard. And given that they are probably paying around 4% while the Irish government has to borrow at 7%, an interest rate shock leaves them totally scuppered, with the best budgeting in the world.

    €36k stamp duty and €1400 monthly repayment suggests they bought for €600k with a 90-95% mortgage. That's more than the average, but it's not exceptional for a 4 bed semi in 2005. They are likely in more than €150k negative equity.

    The basic point is that there must be a lot of people who appear to be on good incomes but who are very exposed, even without any non-mortgage debt. People on average incomes, or who have lost jobs, are in an even worse position. I don't see how this can continue without some enormous write-downs. Personal responsibility at some point becomes a secondary consideration.

    That's it. So many people were comfortable during the boom and they took out loans/mortgage to match. At the time they would have been able to service them. Now incomes are being reduced or have been reduced and out goings are rising.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    jmayo wrote: »
    Ehh why do you get a rent allowance ?
    Are you living away from your family home ?
    Do you work nights, evenings, weekends ?
    Do you get paid extra on top of these allowances for each weekend, night you work ?
    Is there a max number of weekends, nights that you must or can only work for these allowances ?

    BTW you talk about your pension levies, so tell us are you going to get a defined benefit pension that is a percentage of your exit salary ?
    Are you going to receive a tax free lump sum on exit ?

    Are you challenging my figures or just looking to argue about allowances because there are other threads for that.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    This article stinks of something I have heard uttered a few times particularly by it has to be said members of the public sector on public forums and in the media.
    Basically it boils down to the mantra
    "I should be paid a salary and I should only pay taxes based on my outgoings".

    People need to cop on and realise they do not get paid based on how much they spend or they do not pay less taxes based because they have more personal expenditure.

    If a family is on 65k plus probable overtime and contributions such as childrens allowance then they are not that fooking badly off, unless of course they decided to buy loads of stuff on once available cheap credit.


This discussion has been closed.
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