he can say what he likes they can’t legally do anything about it..
it would answer him better to use his time constructively instead of chasing the dragon

Or, of course, ministers could lie about the legal implications of a court decision and misrepresent the true legal position in order to get money paid to their mates, as happened here: http://www.thejournal.ie/aib-should-have-contested-bonuses-case-says-harney-57398-Dec2010/

In that case, there was no legal impediment to blocking the bonuses, summary judgment does not create any kind of binding precedent.

Harney lied through her teeth and I don’t think she’s the last to have done so on this.

Who makes the laws Vinnie?

Talk is cheap!!

hmm do I really have to answer this….? that will never happen as to do that they would have to cut their own pensions and wages..get ny point now?

They say they can’t do anything legally, but what happens if they don’t like something done by the ordinary guy/girl in the street, they change the law. Nobody should be getting that type of money in this climate

Michelle , let Kerry alone. I was only asking a question , and thank you for answering , but Kerry knows everything and has no need to ask anything. All his geese are swans. Lucky him.

It must be great being in the ”Members Only”, Banker,Senior Civil Servant, Politician ”Club”.
When you mess things up… you give yourself a raise.
When you break the country….you give yourself a raise.
When you overspend on your Dublin 4 Mansion…you give yourself a raise.
When your mortgage goes up…you give yourself a raise.

It is time that RTE got some of you guys and your ”legal” friends on the Secret Millionaire???
Or maybe “RTE Cribbs”???

Michelle .have you mixed up your “pensions” withe “salaries”? It seems that Gilmore was referring to €500k salaries and not pensions. Please tell me I am wrong.

Hi Rory,
The Tánaiste was referring to both pensions and salaries of over half a million that bank execs (current and former) are receiving.

Your wrong Rory……..again :-)

Ah Kerry, there’s no need to rub it in :)

Who’d Listen to Eamon Gilmore anymore? A sheep in wolfs clothing. All the pledges he made whilst in opposition were suddenly forgotten when power was thrust upon him. A pathetic little hypocritical liar.

He’ll huff and he’ll puff but he’ll not be blowing any house down…typical, sickening and tiresome spin from a useless and utterly impotent government.

Even though I was not around, is this the same kinda bs that happened that started the French rebellion….. The rich basically mocking honest hard working people/peasants….. These people really have zero integrity, honesty or morals….. Bring back the guiletine! Lets show them what these riches brings them! Am I allowed to say all that? I would be considered twisted and sick for that? Some one delete this after I post please…

That is so true

M.ik, go back to the blue tablets , they suited you better

Hit the nail on the head James! This is the most recent of many ‘ I dont agree with that……BUT’ instances from Gilmore and the labour party! Sound bites and lip service, trying to protect his and partys own ass whilst also supporting the same issues that they are publicaly denouncing.
Ive heard loads of people where I work,say that Gilmore has been found out as being 2 faced and that they wont vote Labour again!
Labour to follow the same faith as the PDs and Greens!!!?!!?

Ah, we’ll get there ;)

Tell you one thing, though, if anyone can’t manage a comfortable life for themselves and their families on that money, then they need to work on their budgetary skills.

Not realistic and never going to happen. Come back and join us in the real world.

Exactly…anyone that has worked hard to build up that kind of income would just leave the country and earn it somewhere else. you would be left with inept people ruining business’s up and down the country…it would have a negative effect on jobs…

It’s already taxed at over 50% anyway

@john with a tax like that you would be better on the dole

No, it’s not. Definitely coming in at under significantly under 50% : http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/leaflets/it1.html#section3

Aaron, those kinds of salaries don’t much fit my definition of the “real world” either. I can’t quite credit that Mick is trotting out the old “because they’re worth it” line here, don’t even try to tell me that these people work so hard and are so talented that they get a salary fifteen times that of the average worker.

As for ” inept people ruining business’s”, I’m pretty sure that there were many more on €500k+ in the pre IBRC Nama, and we all know how well that went.

Vinnie, you’re out of your mind. Better off on the dole? Taking home around €5k per month on the first €100K?

Get real.

@voodoo. Tax 41% USC 7% + prsi. It’s over 50%

First up, it’s 20% on the first €32,800 – €41,800 depending on marital status, 41% on the balance. USC is 2% on the first €10k odd, then 4% up to €16k, then 7%. PRSI allows around €500 p/m, then 4% on the balance.

If Deloitte’s tax calculator is to be believed, a single person on €100k with no pension rebates, etc., pays around 40% tax on the total.

For a single person on €500k, in similar circumstances it’s around 49% – that’s a take home salary of €20,928.00 per month.

These are the highest rates, married people would pay significantly less.

http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_IE/ie/insights/budget-2012-ireland/2012-irish-tax-calculator/index.htm

I’m referring to the second 100k not the first so allowances don’t come into it. The original poster could not possibly have been referring to the first 100k as he wants a 75% tax rate.

I’m referring to the second 100k not the first 100k so allowances don’t come into it. The original poster could not possibly have been referring to the first 100k as he wants a 75% tax rate.

Wasn’t clear that you were talking about earnings over €100k, my mistake. In the current system, a single person on €200k takes home €107,133.00 per year, which by my reckoning includes tax at roughly 51% on the second €100k, roughly 40% on the first. Still well under 50% for the total, though.

And rebates and loopholes most assuredly do come in to it – seems that some 70% of these tax breaks for pensions are claimed by people on six figure salaries, amounting to €200m per year.

The point stands, though – once you hit in or around €100K, you’ve got more than enough to comfortably keep yourself and your family. Taxation on earnings above that level isn’t going to drive anyone into abject poverty.

Unlike, say, cuts to social welfare or public services, which is the choice we’re facing.

Hmm dunno about it not being clear. By the original posters maths, had he been referring to the first 100k a person on 100k would take home 25k and a person on 130k paying 85% would trouser a grand total of 19,500

Anyway, I digress. The problem with punitive taxes on anything over 100k is that execs who are sent abroad by their American mother ships to set up a European HQ will say Whoa! U want to take 75% of my pay and bonuses and shares in excess of 100k? Bye bye jobs, taxes.
Au revoir. ¡hasta la vista.
Auf Wiedersehen. Arrivederci. Pożegnanie

@ voodoo, yes I know plenty people running irish businesses keeping hundreds of people employed that are worth it…without them you would not have the business making money and therefore less employment in the country..at no point did I refer to banking officials

The “bye bye jobs” argument doesn’t wash, it’s just basically the old “we can’t tax multinationals or they’ll leave” line transposed to the micro scale … where it doesn’t really fit.

Multinationals need a certain number of professional and management roles to keep their operations afloat. If some poor lambs can’t live on six figures after tax, I can guarantee you that there will be a queue of equally skilled people to step into their place, who’ll be more than happy with that money.

If it’s a thing that the role can be offshored, then let them off, if they don’t like living here enough to pay their fair share, then good luck to them. Also, taxes aren’t “punitive”, they’re about making the country a decent place to live, which is in all of our interests, although some don’t seem to be able to process this.

Mick, is that the old “heroic wealth creators” argument I hear? Lest we forget, these people are to a large extent dependent upon the skills and commitment of their staff to “create” wealth. In fact very often all owners bring to the table is access to capital, and it’s the staff who actually do all of the “creating”.

There’s certainly no way that a salary 15 times the average industrial wage can be justified in terms of effort and skill. My father broke his back doing 60 hour weeks for years and barely scraped the average industrial wage, there was certainly no want of effort or skill there. Don’t forget that the social class one is born into represents one of the strongest determinants of future earnings.

Btw, just so you know, I run my own business, it’s just that I’m realistic about how much my staff put in to it.

Well done, so if they provide capital for the business and they get taxed to the hilt, they they pull themselves and the capital out of the business and the business goes under…jobs lost..good point voodoo..

Well done, so if they provide capital for the business and they get taxed to the hilt, then they pull themselves and the capital out of the business and the business goes under…jobs lost..good point voodoo..

Don’t have much more time for this, but … why and how would people “pull” out? Leave the country? For the sake of an extra couple of percent on earnings above what amounts to €5k per month as things stand?

I’d have to say, if someone in those circumstances doesn’t want to pay their fair share so as to keep this country from collapsing into a starving underclass and a tiny privileged elite, with a slightly larger middle class desperately trying to stay afloat, that’s their choice and good luck to them, they know where the door is.

I think we’ll find that there are plenty of people out there who are more than capable of stepping up to fill any market niches that may arise, given the chance.

Good point, Mick.

An extra couple of percent??? 75 and 85% as stated in the comment i replied to is not an extra couple of percent… Deal with facts as commented on rather than making up your own, its always the way to go..

voodoo economics would be a better name for you. The Irish State already raises the vast bulk of its tax revenue from these people. There is probably an argument that the ultra rich should pay a bit more (Bono, O’Brien, Gilmore) – the people who are using legal tax avoidance schemes right now – but punitive taxes at 100k level? Did you ever hear the story of the golden goose?

Ok, so. If you want to be like that, let’s take a 75% income tax band kicking in at €100k

For a single person, no children on €150k by my reckoning would leave them with a take home of €1,279.67, per week as opposed to €1,599 under the current scheme.

For a single person, no children on €200k by my reckoning would leave them with a take home of €1,414.29, per week as opposed to €2,060 under the current scheme.

Not insignificant increases, but I still don’t see them not having an enviable lifestyle at that income level. If someone thinks they can’t survive on that, then they know where the door is. Having said that, I personally think the top tax band should be somewhere in the low 50s, but that’s another story.

The point is that the top decile, the 10% of highest earners, pulling more than €170k per year are the only ones who’ve actually seen their incomes increase since the collapse, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that they are asked to put something back, especially considering that public services have already been cut to the bone.

@voodoo. I thought u had somewhere to be? Maybe running your “business” . Taking more than 50% of what someone earns is immoral. It’s a disincentive to produce more. There would be no point in trying to create more if u knew 75% of it wud be handed over to the state for distribution among the freeloaders. Ur talking communism

Business is pretty good, thanks chief – another day down. And Ur talking utopian capitalism, the idea that leaving the very rich as a protected species will magically lead to wealth trickling down, and everything will be rosy. That’s been proven that this does not work, over and over again.

If it’s a moral argument, the obvious counterargument is that nobody, but nobody, deserves to earn fifteen times the wage of the average worker, however brilliant they are, and that everyone has a duty to those around them as well as to themselves – no man is an island, wha? Will be a pretty miserable country if 30% of people are driven into abject poverty, which is a distinct possibility with the way things are going, all to make sure our heroic “wealth creators” can afford that darling lttle villa in Tuscany.

“The Irish State already raises the vast bulk of its tax revenue from these people”.

And properly so, because “these people”, the top 20%, pull somewhere in the vicinity of 45% of the income in this country, with the top 5% holding around 40% of the wealth.

In those terms, the argument that 15% pay 40% of the taxes doesn’t look quite so persuasive. Perhaps it might be more meaningful to tie that figure to take home pay as a proportion of the average industrial wage and household wealth.

The fact remains that the richest decile is getting richer, while the poorest is getting poorer: http://www.thejournal.ie/disposable-income-in-poor-households-falls-18-per-cent-521921-Jul2012/

As for the goose, it’s always the same Ayn Rand arguments:

- Rich people are rich because they’re better than ordinary people, so they deserve it;
- We need to be sure to tug hard on our forelocks and bow low when rich people pass, definitely not upset them, or they’ll take their unimaginable brilliance off to some mountain hideaway with John Galt and we’ll all be left in rags.

Neither of which are true. Perhaps uncoincidentally, Ayn Rand died friendless, alone in her apartment with her stamp collection, btw.

For sure Bonos and the O’Briens of this world need to be addressed, although this would probably have to be done on an EU wide or global scale, closing off loopholes and tax havens.

This doesn’t take away from the fact that we’re facing a choice in the next budget: take more from those who can least afford it, or from those who can best afford it. There’s no getting away from the fact that a certain sector of society are doing quite nicely out of this whole thing, personally I think it’s their turn to shoulder the burden – everyone else has.

John, why should someone earning over 100k not be entitled to earn it as is suggested by your 75% tax rate. Remember they are already paying in the region of 40k in tax already. I’m tired of this lazy swipe at those who work hard to earn it.

Barry, Dukes also has his TD & ministerial pensions to comfort him. All €129,805 of it.