Let them keep him. I’m sure his customers will think twice before buying his merchandise. The rich need to pay their fair share of taxes.

Yeah like Bono, who doesn’t pay tax here either.

Conor
Quite simply, the tax rate is too high here as well.

For the 50 millionth time! BONO PAYS TAX IN IRELAND ON HIS PERSONAL INCOME!!!! Do you know of anyone in this country that lives here and has a residence that pays zero tax? Think about it for a second!

It is U2′s recording rights which are part of a company that are based in the Netherlands…. just like Google, Microsoft and all the other large companies that come to Ireland for low tax rates, an Irish company “U2″ did the same thing….

Bloody bandwagoners!

Conor, you pay less Tax in Ireland than I do in Germany. I live there and I’ve done the comparison. Would you like to swap?

“Quite simply, the tax rate is too high here as well.”

Wrong. Taxes on the top 10 per cent are at a 25 year low in Ireland. Since the 1980’s taxes on the rich have been falling in Ireland due to tax breaks, tax anomalies, and reduced tax rates on high earners.

€190m on how much in earnings? In all fairness, despite his fondness for booze and high living, the man has come out €200m in the black – he has nothing to complain about … it’s not like he invented a cure for cancer or anything. No sympathy – think it’s quite telling that he’s off to Vlad and the oligarchs, also.

Voodoo
I wonder do you realise the foolishness behind your assertion. Let’s run all of the high worth individuals out of the country because they make too much money and aren’t really contributing enough. There is no difference between a flight of capital and a flight of high nett values citizens. Those left behind have to pay more. Voodoo, in case it escaped you , that means you and I have to pay more because your idea is to run them out. Any explanation of how reasonable this ides is would be appreciated.

Oh sure, Michael, higher tax rates inevitably will “drive out” high earners:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/nov/16/sweden-tax-burden-welfare

Voodoo
I think it must have escaped your attention but the marginal rate of income tax in Ireland is fifty five per cent which is higher than the UK and not too far short of the Swedish rate. At what stage do you ignore the reality of your foolishness. Would it be when the flight of high nett worth individuals has occurred . Why would you pretend that the French Government hadn’t achieved anything but create tax exiles. How does that hole get filled old boy?

Rob,

Wealth inequality is when the rich fail to pay their fair share of taxes. You claim he paid €190 million in taxes but the objective question is: out of HOW MUCH?

Where are you getting that figure? Marginal rate for Ireland in 2011 was 46% in 2011 according to KPMG, full 10 points lower than Sweden.

I’d personally be in favour of adding a third band at around 50% kicking in at around €100k give or take, and dropping the middle band back to 46% or so, would be a better distribution of the burden. In other words, a cut for those under €100k, around the same or slightly more for those around that level, and a fairly significant increase for those above.

As for foolishness, you’re ignoring the problem of demand, that is hobbling any chance of recovery, in favour of scaremongering over capital flight.

Btw, is there any real evidence of this having actually happened, aside from Monsieur Depardieu’s latest role, playing the tax exile cause célèbre? Because Cameron’s line, much trumpeted by the looney right, that the 50% top rate had driven two thirds of millionaires out if the UK certainly is not true:

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/labour_50p_tax_rate_millionaires_leave_country-28645

I agree completely,

Won’t be much fun for anyone if raw, unadulturated, unrepentant greed gets us to a place where 10% of the population is living in gated palaces, while the rest of us are either barely getting by or living in poverty. This is where we’re headed, eventually it’ll be much worse than “boring”

This idea that asking the very wealthy to contribute according to their means represents “punishment” is just a load of baloney – we all have to live in this society, and we all have an interest in a more equal, fairer arrangement.

Simple fact: according to IBEC, domestic demand has fallen by 22% in volume and by almost 30% in value since 2007. This is a massive problem, that’s preventing meaninful economic recovery. Increasing taxes on wealthier portions of society does less to depress demand than targeting low and middle earners, as we’ve been doing.

In the long term, it’s in everyone’s interests to do so, don’t believe the hype.

If we are to see a high tax on the rich as fair we should also see cuts to welfare, allowances and tax increase to the average paid worker being fair too!

We already have seen tax increases that disporportionately target low and middle earners – USC, PRSI change, VAT, etc.; and we have already seen cuts and general tightening of welfare, even if the core rate has remained.

The one measure that’s conspicuous by its absence is any move to increase taxes on highest earners, proportionate with their disproportionate share of the country’s wealth, which would be less economically detrimental than these other measures have been – just look at our growth figures. This is my whole point.

I’m tired of the tax dodging antics of the sans patrie super rich. Real patriots pay their tax for the benefit of the nation. The minute one of these feckers runs behind the skirt of another nation is a sign that we need to remove their citizen rights until they pay their fair share.

Philip Kennedy: Nobody is punishing success. I think neo-cons resort to smoke and mirrors antics in their arguments to conceal the fact that even after 75% tax on say a million euro, that would still leave a massive €250,000 salary – hardly “punishing”.

Higher tax rates on the very wealthy are emphatically *not* “punishment for success” of “wealth creators”, or whatever the latest buzz words are coming out if the looney right apologist machine.

A fairer, more equal society is in everyone’s interests, including those of the very wealthy. It’s a particular issue in Ireland at the moment, where further cuts to income of low and middle earners depress demand much further than cuts to the income of the very wealthy.

It’s a matter of simple pragmatism, not “begrudgery”:

http://m.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/05/joseph-stiglitz-the-price-on-inequality

You are right in that a fairer society is to everyone’s benefit. However fair though and even playing by the rules there will still be winners and losers. The winners should not be penalised for winning and the losers should not be subsidised for losing.

No. 75% is a modest contribution compared to 90% in the USA in the 1950’s.

And the black box was recovered…

Right in the loop with Oxygene man, are you?

Suppose you’d prefer the rob-the-poor-to-feed-the-rich capitalist utopias that are going on here and in the UK, then? Bad and all as our crowd are, at least they haven’t had the cheek to cut taxes on millionaires:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/01/ids-trouble-over-his-strivers%E2%80%99-tax-%E2%80%93-and-he-knows-it

It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now  Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
 John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962

Voodoo
Let’s have a look at your ideas a little more closely. Let’s take the two Socialist paradises on Earth as an example and look at Cuba and North Korea. Could you advise us as to the number of high nett worth individuals still residing in these Socialist havens so we can get a measure of the success of your chosen political preference.

Sean, Kennedy was speaking at the height of the post New Deal “golden age”, think Roosevelt’s words from the jaws of the Great Depression are more telling for present purposes:

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little… I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-nourished.”

Michael, you’re assuming plenty about my views here on no real evidence. I’m not a communist revolutionary, but rather pretty moderate, pragmatic, social democrat, and a massive fan of the Nordic Model:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden

@ voodoo economics.
The new deal was a farce. The only thing it achieved was to demonstrate the extraordinary potency of government spin and extraordinary gullibility of the general public.
By the outbreak of WW2, US unemployment remained at 14%.
An effective episode of US depression busting was the 1920-21 depression when the Harding/Coolidge administration returned full employment in 2 years. By cutting government spending, pushing up interest rates and refusing to bail out insolvent banks.
As to the other myth, here’s a more reliable source on Sweden economic history than Wikipedia.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704698004576104023432243468.html

Oh right the fair and balanced Wall Street Journal there, Seán? Of course everything is a triumph of neoliberal dogma over “socialism” in their view. Face facts Sweden has one of the highest tax rates in the world, a robust welfare state and therefore low inequality by international stancards, but has fared far better than other countries who have more wholeheartedly embraced “liberalization” and the “magic of the markets”, like ourselves? Coincidence?

Pretty laughable to knock the New Deal, given that many of its component elements were in place during the “Golden age of American Capitalism”, and beyond, only to be dismantled by Reganomics and Thatcherism from the early 80s. The current crisis is a logical, and all too foreseeable consequence of the latter move – these measures had been designed to help prevent another great crash. But sure, keep drinking that kool aid, champ.

I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started… And an enormous debt to boot.
Henry J Morgenthau, US Treasury Secretary, May 1939 (to House of Representatives Commitee)

Its been known for years that because of the income inequality, millions lost jobs around Europe and the US. The W. Bush tax cuts were “pay off ” to the wealthy; sounds familiar in Ireland and in France also.

All many working families got was wage cuts, higher taxes, property taxes & water charges to subsidize the tax breaks on the wealthy.

+1

I’ve always thought this was the best way of implementing wealth tax – a use it or lose it scheme.

Best of both worlds – the wealthy get to reduce their tax liabilities, provided they actually invest in the local economy. If not, the government will do it for them.

I’m glad someone else here gets the point that the health of the economy as a whole depends on the recirculation of money.

Brendan, so the Bush tax cuts and borrowing trillions for wars didn’t work?

Also, the biggest mistake in history will be the idea of tax cuts for wealthy while borrowing trillions for forever wars. See: W. Bush.

Brendan, are you paid by your comrades the, trying to divide and destroy a middle class Ireland.

Taxes in France are still low compared to other countries. At one time (1950’s)) the top tax rate was 91% on wealth not paid to your employees in the USA. Then most everone worked and paid taxes, unions were strong. In only 50 years look at what a conservative ideology has done to America.

Thanks Brian, I think that rant was a couple of months stewing.

Conservatives would love to tax families with 2 children and mother and father working bringing in 34K per year. Just don’t tax anyone with a million euro yearly income. Brian, just drink the Fake News TV koolade and watch the rich running out of places to hide. President Hollande won by a landslide, and gets stronger ever week.