New roads / infrastructure

sjfoley

Myself and a few friends have recently been discussing some badly needed infrastructure / bypasses needed in our area, like what is needed in Macroom Co Cork, and Adare Co limerick. and we were wondering what percent of any government spend does it get back in taxes, all taxes, from the guy that buys the few gallons of petrol on his way to that work , to all the VAT on the material used, the plant and machinery bought by contractors, and the tax paid by the workers, and the spin off to the local economy . We reckon that when everything is taken to account, right down to the breakfast role bought in the local cafe, that the taxman must deliver almost 50 % back to the government. Your comments would be appreciated. Sime.

BoJack Horseman

That's a tough question to answer.

Obviously every euro spent by a government will partially be clawed back through VAT & income tax etc....
Then when you consider economic gains from a given piece of infrastructure & the associated tax gain.

I don't think I've ever seen any numbers on it.... it would probably be a very tricky thing to calculate.

Usually there are always guesses that "X infrasture will deliver Y"... but they are usually spin/lobbying guesses.

sparky42

In terms of road building it actually turns out to be a large amount of taxes/returns, basically I think it's only the Bitichumen that we have to import (outside capital expenses of the hardware first off), so everything from road signs to concrete barriers, to those wooden fences, to the rocks in the foundation etc. All of those were sourced from Irish companies during the boom times.

One of the problems now is regenerating the hardware that may have been sold off or is somewhere else in the world now.