What current FG policies are right wing?

jd1983

piplip87 wrote: »

FG seen as rightwing yet they have legalised Gay Marriage, brought in abortion and raised welfare during their time in office.

Almost all Irish parties dabble both sides of the lone.

Gay marriage was pushed by Labour.

FG had no choice on the repeal there 8th after setting up oireachtas committees and a citizens assembly in order to kick ther can down the road. Anecdotally I heard that fg were very surprised about the findings of these. Once the findings were revealed they had no choice to hold the referendum but they did absolutely no campaigning for this referendum. Their leader and co leader both expressed reservations leading up to the referendum about the proposed legislation.

Did they raise welfare when ff were propping them up? If so I reckon that was ff's influence.

I agree that most parties (FG included) dabble with both left and right policies but fg would definitely be skewed to the right. FG would definitely be considered socially conservative by European standards.

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

I predicted that a link provided would be dismissed and here we are, a company with an effective rate higher than 12.5%. And for the record, I most certainly do know how accounting and tax works.

No you didn't? Link me to one? And link me the financial statements? The vast majority of multinationals in Ireland pay under the 12.5%.
Have a read sunshine and enlighten yourself


"The Double Irish is a base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") corporate tax tool, used mostly by US multinationals since the late 1980s, to avoid corporate taxation on most non–U.S. profits.[a] It is the largest tax avoidance tool in history and by 2010, was shielding US$100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation, and was the main tool by which US multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2018"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

christy c

smurgen wrote: »

No you didn't? Link me to one? And link me the financial statements? The vast majority of multinationals in Ireland pay under the 12.5%.
Have a read sunshine and enlighten yourself


"The Double Irish is a base erosion and profit shifting ("BEPS") corporate tax tool, used mostly by US multinationals since the late 1980s, to avoid corporate taxation on most non–U.S. profits.[a] It is the largest tax avoidance tool in history and by 2010, was shielding US$100 billion annually in US multinational foreign profits from taxation, and was the main tool by which US multinationals built up untaxed offshore reserves of US$1 trillion from 2004 to 2018"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Try to keep up, another poster provided the details on Google. If you want more information you could look at the RTE link you provided yourself. Dig out the financial statements if you want them, I'm not here to provide details to spoofers such as yourself.

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

Try to keep up, another poster provided the details on Google. If you want more information you could look at the RTE link you provided yourself. Dig out the financial statements if you want them, I'm not here to provide details to spoofers such as yourself.

I pulled apart the figures.you don't understand financial statements.this only becomes and issue when you pretend you know what's going on.

christy c

smurgen wrote: »

I pulled apart the figures.you don't understand financial statements.this only becomes and issue when you pretend you know what's going on.

What was Google's effective tax rate rate in the example?

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

What was Google's effective tax rate rate in the example?

There was tax free payments for royalties back to the parent companies. This means the effective tax rate is no where near the 12.5%.

christy c

smurgen wrote: »

There was tax free payments for royalties back to the parent companies. This means the effective tax rate is no where near the 12.5%.

Royalties are a legitimate business expense. And it means the effective tax rate was higher than 12.5

Raconteuse

FG are in the centre imo. Can't take seriously the claim that they're right-wing. Now that doesn't mean that none of their economic views are to the right, but overall, right-wing - with a gay, mixed race leader? Ah here.

And referencing the FG of 80 to 85 years ago in relation to the FG of now - pointless, poor arguing. Particularly if quick to dismiss SF's link to the IRA.

rossie1977

*Low corporate tax rates. Coporate power is protected
* Huge cuts in public expenditure ie gardai, post offices, fire-stations, hospitals, public transport have seen cuts over past decade particularly in rural areas
*Continue war on drugs
* introduced a new prostitution law

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

Royalties are a legitimate business expense. And it means the effective tax rate was higher than 12.5

Pointless post is pointless. You're right and the academic world aswell as international tax experts are wrong.

smurgen

Privatization of government services.
Overuse of consultancy companies.
Weak corporate governance

christy c

smurgen wrote: »

Pointless post is pointless. You're right and the academic world aswell as international tax experts are wrong.

Haha, your gibberish is just getting worse.

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

Haha, your gibberish is just getting worse.

Go to college. Study finance and economics get a degree.then get a master's then get a chartered qualification and then we'll talk. Until your's is just barstool opinions friend.

rossie1977

Lowering individual taxes is NOT a right-wing policy. Right wing economic policies involve protecting corporate power and reducing labour power.

Nevada has the lowest individual tax rates in the US but would not be considered a conservative state because gambling is legalised, prostitution is legal in most of the state and it was one of the first places to make medical marijuana legal

christy c

smurgen wrote: »

Go to college. Study finance and economics get a degree.then get a master's then get a chartered qualification and then we'll talk. Until your's is just barstool opinions friend.

More gibberish, my opinions are certainly not barstool opinions. I've no interest in talking to you, just thought I'd highlight your waffle.

I'll leave you to it as you're obviously spoofing.

smurgen

christy c wrote: »

More gibberish, my opinions are certainly not barstool opinions. I've no interest in talking to you, just thought I'd highlight your waffle.

I'll leave you to it as you're obviously spoofing.

Back to your pint big man

The Rooster

smurgen wrote: »

But what is the tax paid relative to income?
And tell me why are the U.S authorities and E.U forcing Ireland to charge the actual corporate tax rate and close the tax loopholes?
Also you are not showing the full Google picture and you presented an example that proves my point perfectly. The revenue from Google Ireland limited was 38.1 billion.
This is the important part ;

"Administrative expenses climbed €3.2bn to €25.1bn, caused by an increase in employee numbers required to support the growth of the business as well as royalty payments to the group."

Royalty payments aka syphoning money to avoid tax.

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1095253/

I don't know if you're being deliberately ridiculous, because on other posts you're pretending to have financial qualifications?

You highlight additional expenses of €3.2bn but ignore the additional turnover of €5.9bn! Do you expect companies to generate extra revenues without incurring extra costs? Really??

Paying royalties for intellectual property is a legitimate business expense which nobody in the world disputes.The question is how are those royalties taxed. US mulit-nationals used Bermudan, Cayman etc to house the IP. The super profits that these MNCs earn is because of their IP. The fact that they moved their IP from the US to havens is a US issue not an Irish issue. If they'd kept them in US, then Google Ireland would have been paying the royalty to the US and not to Bermuda. But Google Ireland earns the correct profit in Ireland.

And Google Ireland's Irish profits was a massive €1.6 billion, on which is paid more than 12.5% tax.

The double Irish is a misnomer and used by people that have no idea what they're talking about to say there are loopholes in Ireland or that Ireland is a tax haven. Yes, US MNCs used Irish incorporated and Bermuda tax residence companies to house IP and pay no tax. But it's exactly the same as a Bermudan incorporated Bermuda tax resident company. For company law reasons they picked Irish incorporated companues, not for tax reasons, as in any event haven resident companies pay no tax. There are no Irish directors, no Irish employees, no Irish activities, so it's ridiculous to suggest such a company should pay Irish tax.

Ireland has changed its company law and tax legislation to stop companies doing this, but this doesn not make one iota of a difference overall as the US companies just move their IP to haven incorporated companies. That's complete window dressing. The IP never touches Ireland, so Ireland can't get the profits associated with it.

Separately there are new EU and OECD rules aimed at curbing the use of havens. Making it near impossible to get tax deductions for payments to havens. So all the US MNCs are moving out of havens. Where they move their IP back to the US, this makes not a single difference to current operations and profits and tax of the Irish companies - they just pay the royalty for the use of the IP to the US instead of the haven. (some are actually moving their IP to Ireland, hence the increase in Irish corporate tax receipts).

Note, it is only US companies that used havens. The big German, UK, Canadian HQ companies didnt use Cayman or Bermuda etc, because their rules would tax any royalty income received in a haven in Germany, UK, Canada, etc. However, the US has an exemption (called the "check the box" exemption) which facilitated US MNCs using havens. They could have killed the use of havens from Day 1, but chose not to. And bizarrely because the structures were dubbed "double Irish", Ireland got the blame rather than the US. The vast majority of these companies were paying exactly the right amount of Irish tax, but were avoiding US tax by the use of havens.

Note - Apple was different to almost every other tech company. They used a more complex branch structure rather than a separate haven company.

The Rooster

jd1983 wrote: »

FG is definitely economically right wing by the standards of developed nations. Ireland has a low tax to gnp ratio and low government spend to gnp ratio as well. These ratios have lowered since fg got into power.

Other right wing indicators:
- low corporate tax rate and many loopholes - we're often called a tax haven for corporations
- Urge to privatise - water, b gais energy, broadband scheme, eircode, lotto etc
- a lot of government spend/assets tends to go to corporations or wealthy individuals - e.g: bank/insurance bail outs, national broadband scheme, hap, giving private land to building developers etc
- tax breaks for wealthy e.g. capital gains tax, inheritance tax etc
- allowing vulture funds to register as charities to avoid paying tax
- Enda Kenny's admission that he'd like to move Ireland towards an American taxation model

Thankfully FG has only been in a majority government for 5 years in the past 20 years. For those 5 years they shared that majority with Labour, so we're not yet an extreme right wing society. But rest assured we would be if they were in power for longer, particularly if they had a majority all by themselves.

There's an awful lot of incorrect stuff in there, but I'm going to focus on capital gains tax as a tax break for the wealthy.

At 33%, our CGT rate is the 3rd highest in the EU
https://taxfoundation.org/capital-gains-taxes-in-europe/

How is that a tax break?
And please don't come back with mythical loophole nonsense, unless you're aware of one that actually exists (which I doubt very much)

christy c

The Rooster, excellent posts again.

nigeldaniel

If my memory serves me right I would say the old PD's were more right-wing than FG. Just my musing on the topic.

Jamie2k9

nigeldaniel wrote: »

If my memory serves me right I would say the old PD's were more right-wing than FG. Just my musing on the topic.

FG have gone soft since they were in Government with Labour, FG light is what they are now.

smurgen

The Rooster wrote: »

I don't know if you're being deliberately ridiculous, because on other posts you're pretending to have financial qualifications?

You highlight additional expenses of €3.2bn but ignore the additional turnover of €5.9bn! Do you expect companies to generate extra revenues without incurring extra costs? Really??

Paying royalties for intellectual property is a legitimate business expense which nobody in the world disputes.The question is how are those royalties taxed. US mulit-nationals used Bermudan, Cayman etc to house the IP. The super profits that these MNCs earn is because of their IP. The fact that they moved their IP from the US to havens is a US issue not an Irish issue. If they'd kept them in US, then Google Ireland would have been paying the royalty to the US and not to Bermuda. But Google Ireland earns the correct profit in Ireland.

And Google Ireland's Irish profits was a massive €1.6 billion, on which is paid more than 12.5% tax.

The double Irish is a misnomer and used by people that have no idea what they're talking about to say there are loopholes in Ireland or that Ireland is a tax haven. Yes, US MNCs used Irish incorporated and Bermuda tax residence companies to house IP and pay no tax. But it's exactly the same as a Bermudan incorporated Bermuda tax resident company. For company law reasons they picked Irish incorporated companues, not for tax reasons, as in any event haven resident companies pay no tax. There are no Irish directors, no Irish employees, no Irish activities, so it's ridiculous to suggest such a company should pay Irish tax.

Ireland has changed its company law and tax legislation to stop companies doing this, but this doesn not make one iota of a difference overall as the US companies just move their IP to haven incorporated companies. That's complete window dressing. The IP never touches Ireland, so Ireland can't get the profits associated with it.

Separately there are new EU and OECD rules aimed at curbing the use of havens. Making it near impossible to get tax deductions for payments to havens. So all the US MNCs are moving out of havens. Where they move their IP back to the US, this makes not a single difference to current operations and profits and tax of the Irish companies - they just pay the royalty for the use of the IP to the US instead of the haven. (some are actually moving their IP to Ireland, hence the increase in Irish corporate tax receipts).

Note, it is only US companies that used havens. The big German, UK, Canadian HQ companies didnt use Cayman or Bermuda etc, because their rules would tax any royalty income received in a haven in Germany, UK, Canada, etc. However, the US has an exemption (called the "check the box" exemption) which facilitated US MNCs using havens. They could have killed the use of havens from Day 1, but chose not to. And bizarrely because the structures were dubbed "double Irish", Ireland got the blame rather than the US. The vast majority of these companies were paying exactly the right amount of Irish tax, but were avoiding US tax by the use of havens.

Note - Apple was different to almost every other tech company. They used a more complex branch structure rather than a separate haven company.

You don't understand either sit down.

"The double Irish is a misnomer and used by people that have no idea what they're talking about to say there are loopholes in Ireland or that Ireland is a tax haven" lol.

alastair

Raconteuse wrote: »

FG are in the centre imo. Can't take seriously the claim that they're right-wing. Now that doesn't mean that none of their economic views are to the right, but overall, right-wing - with a gay, mixed race leader? Ah here.

The AfD’s leader is gay. I’d have thought them pretty unambiguously right-wing.

smurgen

smurgen wrote: »

You don't understand either sit down.

"The double Irish is a misnomer and used by people that have no idea what they're talking about to say there are loopholes in Ireland or that Ireland is a tax haven" lol.

"In his 2014 budget speech, then finance minister Michael Noonan bowed to international pressure and announced that the ‘double Irish’ loophole would be closed to new firms from 2015.

However companies already using the structure were given a “transition period” of until the end of 2020 to get their affairs in order."

https://www.thejournal.ie/google-ireland-tax-3-3-4367701-Dec2018/

The Rooster

smurgen wrote: »

"In his 2014 budget speech, then finance minister Michael Noonan bowed to international pressure and announced that the ‘double Irish’ loophole would be closed to new firms from 2015.

However companies already using the structure were given a “transition period” of until the end of 2020 to get their affairs in order."

https://www.thejournal.ie/google-ireland-tax-3-3-4367701-Dec2018/

I just explained what it is. Can you not take it in?

Just because it's commonly used doesn't mean it's not a misnomer.

It's a misnomer because while it involves two Irish incorporated companies it does not involve two Irish tax resident companies. Some so-called journalists take a Bermuda resident company paying 0% tax and a Irish resident company paying 12.5% tax and say the average Irish tax rate is 2-3%. Sheep like you lap that up even though it is pure nonsense. The Irish rate is 12.5% and the Bermudan/Cayman rate is 0%. We closed it off because of the bad publicity from idiot journalists, not because it was causing Irish tax avoidance. It did not make an iota of difference to us, and US companies could just transfer their IP to Bermudan incorporated companies which was the exact same structure but without the "double Irish" name.

Companies who put their international IP into havens did not save a penny of Irish tax. They saved plenty of US tax. Do you understand now or do you need pictures?

smurgen

The Rooster wrote: »

I just explained what it is. Can you not take it in?

Just because it's commonly used doesn't mean it's not a misnomer.

It's a misnomer because while it involves two Irish incorporated companies it does not involve two Irish tax resident companies. Some so-called journalists take a Bermuda resident company paying 0% tax and a Irish resident company paying 12.5% tax and say the average Irish tax rate is 2-3%. Sheep like you lap that up even though it is pure nonsense. The Irish rate is 12.5% and the Bermudan/Cayman rate is 0%. We closed it off because of the bad publicity from idiot journalists, not because it was causing Irish tax avoidance. It did not make an iota of difference to us, and US companies could just transfer their IP to Bermudan incorporated companies which was the exact same structure but without the "double Irish" name.

Companies who put their international IP into havens did not save a penny of Irish tax. They saved plenty of US tax. Do you understand now or do you need pictures?

I understand what you're trying to say but what you're trying to say is wrong.and what you're trying to say is that they're not avoiding CT. However we're effectively facilitating tax avoidance on a grand scale.
Now I have no problem with the above. He who dares etc etc. However what's the contingency plan when the international community really cracks down on the loopholes? And believe me they will. If BEPS 2.0 pillar 2 doesn't do it the next run of tax reforms will.

Mr E

smurgen wrote: »

You don't understand either sit down.

Mod: Tone this kind of crap down please. Try to have a civilised discussion without childish jabs.

PeadarCo

smurgen wrote: »

I understand what you're trying to say but what you're trying to say is wrong.and what you're trying to say is that they're not avoiding CT. However we're effectively facilitating tax avoidance on a grand scale.
Now I have no problem with the above. He who dares etc etc. However what's the contingency plan when the international community really cracks down on the loopholes? And believe me they will. If BEPS 2.0 pillar 2 doesn't do it the next run of tax reforms will.

How is Ireland facilitating tax evasion? Move away from the newspaper headlines and members of other countries competing for the same FDI. What you seem to be arguing for is that the worldwide income of any company resident in Ireland and any relevant parents or subsidiaries should be taxed in Ireland. Or put simply you saying Ireland is facilitating tax evasion by Facebook by not taxing the company on its worldwide profits as if all its income and costs solely relate to Ireland.


Or put I an another way if an Irish person emigrates to a tax haven say Dubai spends 0 time in Ireland and earns all their income in Dubai and gets taxed far far less is the Irish government facilitating tax evasion by Irish citizens by not taxing them on money earned outside Ireland when they are not ever in the country but are still Irish citizens.

Despite what many people say Google, Facebook Apple etc have significant operations in Ireland and have been here for sustained periods of time. In apples case 40 years plus. You don't invest billions of euro and employ thousands of people on basis of taxes alone. The tax rules of a country can and in some cases do change effectively overnight. The most recent reforms in global corporation tax have helped Ireland because it has reduced the ability for letterbox companies. So companies who want to take advantage of Irelands tax rate need substantial operations in the country. This requires money, time and people something that won't be done for tax saving alone.

jd1983

The Rooster wrote: »

There's an awful lot of incorrect stuff in there, but I'm going to focus on capital gains tax as a tax break for the wealthy.

At 33%, our CGT rate is the 3rd highest in the EU
https://taxfoundation.org/capital-gains-taxes-in-europe/

How is that a tax break?
And please don't come back with mythical loophole nonsense, unless you're aware of one that actually exists (which I doubt very much)

Haha, if there's so much that's incorrect then why did you pick something that's so easy for me to show evidence of. Since Ireland exited the troica program they eased capital gains tax in the each of the following budgets:
- 2014 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2014.html#l01933
- 2015 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2015.html#l01933
- 2017 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2017.html#l01933

This is during a period where the gap between the rich and poor was widening and most credible economists were advocating wealth taxes instead of tax cuts.

Again, it's more the direction under FG that's worrying. FG haven't been in power for that long, so their effect has been limited and previous FG governments weren't as far right. However the current FG party is unmistakably right wing.

The Rooster

jd1983 wrote: »

Haha, if there's so much that's incorrect then why did you pick something that's so easy for me to show evidence of. Since Ireland exited the troica program they eased capital gains tax in the each of the following budgets:
- 2014 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2014.html#l01933
- 2015 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2015.html#l01933
- 2017 - https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/budgets/budget_2017.html#l01933

This is during a period where the gap between the rich and poor was widening and most credible economists were advocating wealth taxes instead of tax cuts.

Again, it's more the direction under FG that's worrying. FG haven't been in power for that long, so their effect has been limited and previous FG governments weren't as far right. However the current FG party is unmistakably right wing.

Seriously!!

Next time, why not try answering in your own words rather than throwing links that don't prove anything.

Our CGT rate is 33%, the third highest in the EU. To say it's low or a tax break for the wealthy is just plain wrong.

Those links were examples of focused incentives used by all governments and are usually very much a minority sport and make little impact to the overall 33% rate which applies to everything else.

The first was introduced when the property market was dead. People have short memories. The incentive was for anyone that bought a property in a specific 3 year period and held it for at least 7 years would be exempt from CGT.
I'm not saying this was a good plan in hindsight. But it had nothing to do with helping the wealthy. This was introduced when "negative equity" was the big buzzword and a political hot potato. So many ordinary people had inadvertently over-stretched themselves in the boom and now had loans that were bigger than the value of their houses. The intention was to stop the decrease in property values and get values going in the other direction. This had cross party support as an encouragement to kick-start the property market. (Personally I disagreed with this at the time from a selfish perspective as I thought that lower property prices was a good thing, but that's easy for me to say when I was never in "negative equity").

The second is an incentive for individual entrepreneurs who set up their own business. Risk takers. People who provide jobs. The only criticism this got was that it did not go far enough. It's only a fraction as beneficial as the UK version. Personally I think FG got this one right. Providing an extra incentive for people who put so much at risk to start a business is a good thing. Far more start-ups fail than succeed. And I think FG were right not to bow down to pressure to bring it up to UK levels, which are over-generous in my opinion.