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BOTH THE TAOISEACH Enda Kenny and the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan have publicly stated there would be no increase in income tax in 2014. They have not kept this promise, as a vulnerable section of society discovered in January of this year.
Budget 2014, following a recommendation by the Commission on Taxation in 2009, replaced the “one parent family tax credit” with a “single person child carer credit”.
In the past, a couple that experienced marriage breakdown were entitled to a tax credit in respect of dependent children. In practise, this was awarded to both parents. Since January of this year the renamed tax credit is available to only one parent. The tax code has, in effect, created a hierarchy in that there is now a “primary” and a “secondary” parent, the former receiving the tax credit, the latter not.
Revenue by default allocates the new credit to the parent in receipt of Child Benefit who, in the majority of cases, is the mother. Only if she cannot avail of the credit for any reason is the credit transferred to the father.
Thus the result of the change in the vast majority of cases is a decrease in the father’s tax credits of €1,650 and a €4,000 reduction in his standard tax band.
According to Census 2011, there are 204,964 people either separated or divorced in Ireland. Not all, of course, have dependent children. The additional tax burden will primarily fall on the 45,276 of these who are males in employment.
A man earning up to the limit of the 20 per cent tax band will pay around €600 more in tax per annum. A man subject to the 41 per cent tax band will pay approximately €2,500 in an additional tax.
The Commission on Taxation Report of 2009 states that the purpose of the one parent family tax credit was to “support labour market participation of single parents”. The Report also noted that the “cost of this relief is considerable” but did not specify a figure. It claimed that removing the credit from one of the parents would “restore greater balance between the cost of the tax credit and the benefit derived from it”.
Budget 2014, estimates that the partial removal of the credit will raise €18 million in 2014 and €28 million in a full year. Hardly “considerable” in the greater scheme of things. Consultancy fees for Irish Water have so far amounted to €85.97 million.
This gain in tax revenue has to be balanced against the cost of an anticipated fall in the labour force participation rate. The labour force participation rate for separated/divorced people is 73 per cent for males and 65 per cent for females.
Higher income taxes will reduce labour force participation because it lowers the monetary return from work. As people drop out of the labour force, they are likely to register as unemployed and claim social welfare payments.
It is possible that the Commission on Taxation was attempting to remove an anomaly in the tax code. Under the old system the tax credit could have been claimed by both parents if a child resided with each parent for at least one night in the year.
Consider the case where a child resides 364 days of the year with one parent. The other parent contributes little or nothing to looking after the child except for a one-night stay during the year. Why should this spouse be treated any differently in the tax code from a single person with no children?
Under the new system, the child must reside with the secondary parent for at least 100 days in the year. This measure, on its own, would remove the “one night” anomaly. The removal of the tax credit for the secondary parent was unnecessary other than as a revenue generating exercise.
There are further important considerations.
Marriage breakdown inevitably leads to some financial distress. Separate accommodation may entail a second mortgage; there is a doubling of utility bills and transportation costs; child maintenance costs increase and there are legal bills to be paid. Reducing after-tax income could adversely affect the quality of parenting and have a number of possible social repercussions for the children and their upbringing.
Furthermore, the removal of the tax credit for the secondary parent could tip the balance and result in mortgage default.
Recent research by Yvonne McCarthy, cited in these pages by John McManus, shows that of a total 800,000 mortgages, 160,000 are currently in arrears. She finds that “heads of distressed households more often fall into the category widowed, divorced or separated”. That is, marital status has a significant bearing on the risk of incurring mortgage arrears. Furthermore she states that “75 percent of arrears cases include households where the head is currently employed”.
The removal of the tax credit will exasperate this situation as it indirectly Increases the mortgage repayment burden. This will be particularly true for people who took out mortgages in the boom period where loan to value ratios were very high.
These people are depending on their incomes remaining high and no deterioration in their employment conditions. To maintain mortgage affordability a logical reaction would be to attempt to renegotiate child maintenance arrangements. But this can only be achieved by returning to the Circuit Court. This will entail significant expense and create a possibly hostile environment for children.
It would appear that the Commission on Taxation recommendation, implemented after a five-year lag and with very little debate or publicity, is an ill-conceived measure that will have significant adverse effects on a very vulnerable section of society.
Dr Anthony Leddin, Department of Economics, University of Limerick is co-author with Professor Brendan Walsh of Macroeconomics: An Irish and European Perspective, Gill and Macmillan, 2013.
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Three weeks off them today I hope to f@#k I stay off them!!The insomnia is killing me but I have been assured it will be worth it in the end!!…Heres Hoping!
Best of luck with it!
Good luck mate!!
Sure you don’t need to hope any more man, you’re off them for good already.
You don’t need them any more, the only thing you need to do now is never never ever smoke again
Off them 6 years next month, stick with it, it gets easier, word of warning, between week 6 to 8 can be worse than the first week off them, watch out for it and best of luck
It does go away , takes about 3 weeks to sleep right again !! If your using patches they can keep u awake 24/7 but it’s still so worth it !! I’m 2yrs off them last week and so glad !! I don’t think I’ll ever be a reformed smoker I loved smoking to much ;) but it’s seriously worth giving up !! I feel 100times healthier !!! Good luck
Go Jerry it will be worth it ,smoking is not worth the health problems it brings ,my quality of life tells me that now
Keep it up Gerry…will be worth it!
Off them bleeding things for 17+ years. It is worth it!
It will be worth it. Gave them up nearly 13 years ago, best thing I’ve ever done. It gives you freedom, among the many, many other benefits.
Fair play to you, Gerry. I’m 3 weeks off them today and hope I’ll spend the rest of my life of them! More smoking death news today – http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20780179,00.html Another Marlboro man dead RIP
That’s me off them from tomorrow ..
Best of luck! im nearly 5 months off them myself, if I can do it anyone can! :)
3 and a half years without them…. Best thing I’ve ever done…. Hands down
Ban them once and for all!
Then the black market will have a field day, sure theres an awful lot buying them illegally anyway. Education is whats needed
And how long have people been educated about them?
It’s been decades!
Just because we receive education about something does mean it is suffient information. Sure they have a little bit of sex education in schools but it is absolutely useless for the real world. I’m saying a change of attitude is needed towards smoking. I see it everyday in school, the smokers are the ‘cool kids’. Many students smoke just to fit in.
People are much more educated now than before. As a result the numbers of people who smoke has greatly reduced over the years. But we can’t ban everything that’s bad for us. The government is not our mother. Adults are responsible for their own actions and With all the education that’s out there smokers have nobody to blame but themselves for the consequences of smoking. I say this as a smoker, though I am down to one cigarette per day.
Davis Gannon, that’s bullshit, I currently attend second level education and the people who smoke are actually quiet often told straight out that they smell repulsive and that it’s extremely unattractive, there’s no “coolness” attached with it at all anymore, quiet simply because we as a society are getting better educated about them and their horribly harmful effects.
David I don’t think kids these days think it’s cool to smoke, the reverse in fact…none of my kids friends smoke!
My kids don’t smoke eithet
I agree with you my original point was that more education was needed on the matter, which is what is currently happening. quite successfully.
However I disagree that there is no stigma of being ‘cool’ that teenagers feel while smoking. Why do you think that so many teenagers smoke? They don’t just say to themselves “Oh I’ll think I’ll start a bad habit which will use up all my money and damage my health” They do it because they feel pressured to do it by their “friends” or they do it because they feel like the odd one out and want to fit in. I do realise that more than the majority of teenagers do not smoke, but there is much work to be done with regards to putting youths off smoking BEFORE they start.
Quiet David before your brain falls out
At least I have the decency not to resort to insults when I lose an argument…. Cough Cough
20 days & counting…
I quit smoking just over two weeks ago. Best thing I ever did. But I really dislike the way smokers are being made feel like lepers!!! The outcasts of society. Give them a break. It’s not easy to quit! And they are paying a huge amount of tax for their addiction. It’s not about educating a smoker. They know the risks. It’s an addiction! Stop slating them!!!!!
Would it not be a better option to have these people and numerous others who I’m sure would volunteer to attend workshops in schools across the country. Let children see first hand what smoking can do. Education is key, not sending these people to a press call that no child will hear about or putting pictures on boxes that by law are hidden away. Plain packaging is as moronic an idea as tackling underage drinking by banning off sales after ten o’clock. What underage drinker buys their cans after ten? I’m guessing the same amount of underage smokers that care what it says on their fag box.
I quit the dastardly yokes 12 or 13 years ago now…. If you smoke and want to quit then do…. Allen Carr is your only man!
I applaud anyone who quits… and when you get free of the f*ckers the scales really fall from your eyes. There is no good in them at all. Killing machines.
@hairy lemon. Allen Carr’s book sorted me out two years ago. Cheapest way to quit. Saved my life and quality of life too. His method really is the best way to break freehand stay free. I’ll never smoke again. What a great thing to be able to say.
God I wish I never started the damn things ! I’m reading Allan Carr at the moment so hopefully I will be joining all you x smokers soon ! Well done to you all for kicking the habit. Major respect to you !!
Chatty man, yeah he is funny!
Sue the tobacco companies then. I really don’t have time for these sob stories. Call it hard or whatever you like. I smoke and have done for 30 odd years. I know the risks involved exactly like these people did. Will I quit? When I decide to and not because someone, government or otherwise tells me to. If you don’t want to smoke then don’t smoke, if you do then nothing will stop you. Period.
I agree with you Niall. I’m obviously all in favour of teenagers being turned away from smoking before they can start, but the rest of us know the score, and being continually warned against it by a nanny state which continues to rake in VAT from smokers just stinks of hypocrisy.
If you want to smoke knowing the risks, then do. Just make sure that when you end up in hospital (and you will), it’s all paid for by your private health insurance and not the public’s money. And be sure not to take up a bed that someone who didn’t knowingly put their health at risk needs. Cheers.
Niall it’s not about when you decide to, because you are in a state of addiction. It will happen when you can, when you are able to. That’s not now, otherwise you would be off them.
Are you having a laugh? My cigarette taxes are keeping the health service moving. Over seven quid on every pack is tax. Hence the big crackdown on smuggled cigarettes. If illegal drugs were worth the same to the exchequer maybe we would see some movement on the gangs.
Exactly Geoffry!
Melissa if I wanted counselling I’d pay for it. I smoke because I want to, I enjoy it, and no other reason. If you non smokers think that it’s it something that I need to be cured of then you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I don’t encourage anybody to smoke, and especially not kids, but I do something that I enjoy and I absolutely abhor any non smoker telling me what to do with my body! If you don’t like it then get the hell out of the smoking area!!!
its a myth you smoke because you enjoy it… you smoke because you are addicted to a drug. Name something else you enjoy… chocolate, coffee, oranges… do you feel the need to eat some every 30/60 mins, would you eat 30 bars of chocolate/30 oranges a day, do you panic when run out or feel you might be able to get some chocolate for a few hours… of course the answer is no. I am sure you enjoy plenty of things in your life, but you are addicted to cigarettes… nicotene operates on reward pathways in the brain, and that is why you think you love them… as a though experiment, think of something else you love—- would you still consume it every day if it cost 100 euor a week and had a very high chance of killing/maiming you
I will get off my soap box now, I am sure i have annoyed you. Gave up 5 weeks ago, alan car and whyquit web page have been great help. I think form what i have experienced is that withdrawal is a bit of bitch and relieving withdrawal feels so good, it just reinforces that belief you really enjoy them and really need them.
But from someone who is nearly ( though probably totally) over all withdrawal now– its worth it. I am finding myself thinking about them less and less . Soom they will be a distant memory, my life will go on and I will forget them and hopefully forget about all those horrible illnesses too.
Best of luck to anyone quiting… It can be done!
@ciaran. Why don’t you make the same statement to the drinkers who tie up the A&Es on a Friday and Saturday night, or tie up the emergency services because they get into a fight and someone gets injured or drinks themselves into oblivion that they tie up an ambulance.
How many cigarettes do I smoke per day Niamh? I said I smoke because I enjoy them and I wasn’t lying. I enjoy them. Send me to jail. Jesus, somebody sort me out with some crystal meth here, quickly! I honestly wish you the best of luck with the quitting but seriously Niamh, I enjoy the few I smoke. I don’t love them and I know exactly what it does to my body… I can’t play football like I used to be able to, I can’t kickbox like I could, fck me I can’t even sing on stage like I used to do but I’m close on 40 years old. Anything else would be unnatural. I’m happy to do what I’m doing and if I have to leave the world a few years earlier than the rest of ye then so be it. I could be knocked down by a bus tomorrow as soon as I light one up and then everybody will point and say… “see! I told you smoking was bad for you!” ;)
I can wholeheartedly assure you that your taxes from cigarettes do not even scratch the surface of the cost to the public healthcare system of smoking. And I know this because I work in a hospital. Not to mention those affected by passive smoking.
Stop lying to yourself. You don’t enjoy it. Nobody enjoys spending huge amounts of money to be smellier and uglier, and probably die doing so. Half of everyone who smokes die from smoking. Do you enjoy those odds? Your comments are childish and enjoying it is the oldest fib in the book to avoid admitting you just cannot do it, you aren’t able to because your addiction is too strong. Nicotine is a powerful drug it makes you want it, never think you are the one controlling that.
so you are actually saying that if you get some horrible illness in next ten years ( when your 50 and still comparatively young) and you die a painful slow death (lung cancer) or lose your tongue or your voice box or maybe just have to quit your job and all your hobbies like the women in the video . and you either leave your children without a parent or else burden them financially with the cost of your smoking related illness you will be like, ‘well fine, smoking was so worth it’
I don’t why I am bothering, if you can really claim the above is true you actually have bigger problems than smoking.
There is nothing good about smoking.
” Just make sure that when you end up in hospital (and you will), it’s all paid for by your private health insurance and not the public’s money. ”
He’s been paying tax on cigarettes for 30 years, that should cover it
Journal, replying via your mobile ui is f&cked on chrome browser, android, kitkat
I’m on the electric vaporisers over a year and they are fantastic. I have no plans to quit it either. Now I can have a healthy puff and at more than half the price I spent on actual cigarettes.
Healthy puff? You’re shitting me, right? A totally unregulated product, with zero constraints over what is out in them.
More then half the price. Dude unless its at least 1/6 you are getting ripped of on the price you pay for juice.
@stephen, sorry Stephen your fooling yourself. Nicotine is poison. E cigs are not as bad as cigarettes but there still bad and not as you suggest ‘healthy’
Joe. A lot of things are poison. It really does depend on the dose. E cigs are no where near as bad as cigarettes. Not saying they are harmless. But to state something is a poison is wrong. Caffeine in the right doses is an pretty good insecticide.
Nicotine is poison? Really? Please provide proof for that statement because I’ve a lot of stuff waiting to be posted against what you claim. A lack of proper education before you open your mouth is a terrible waste of what could have been a great mind!
@ Niall
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning
And lots more where that came from. You don’t by any chance work for a cigarette company or NRT company?
Common sense really, what does your body do when it takes it’s first cigarette. ‘Nuff said
Work for a cigarette company? I wish. I’d get them for free then!
They are not unregulated they are lightly regulated as to what goes in to them they have been tested in labs yea they are looking fir something harmful to get them off us and back on to the fags where the big money is. Nobody was getting my fags off me even if it killed me because there where too many bullies like the government pushing and pushing I tried an electric cig thinking I might cut down never touched a fag since, chest is clear circulation much better so how could that be bad … They banned fags in most public places but it didnt stop anybody smoking electric cigs could save lives but the criers will refuse to accept it because they would have nothing left to cry about. I mean there may come a day when ppl can smoke and be healthy and happy with e-cigs but what will the criers do with their life when they have nothing to cry about … Eh?
Is it surprising Annette that they want t “regulate” them now? What will happen in the space of the next 2 years is that they’ll become a prescription commodity. More taxes and more black market. No government in the world wants the people to stop smoking. No more than any tobacco company does. Hence the secret meetings that were very much not reported (O’Brien, The Journal where were you then?) a few short months ago. If the population of Ireland believes that Reilly really wants to eradicate smoking from our society then they’re bigger sheep than I thought. That fat doctor” is trying to leave a legacy, the same thing that saved Mehole Martin’s ass. To quote somebody that posted on a different topic earlier.. “why would you expect a long term plan from a short term government?”
@Ciaran…would you say the same to a recovering alcoholic who needs a liver transplant? Or someone who is obese and lives on crap processed food and develops heart problems, diabetes, etc. We are all capable of making life choices that could damage our health.
That’s a horrendous photograph.
Gave them up months ago but every time I walk passed a pub door it’s torture
That”ll ease over time, been there. In fact after a while it becomes a good gauge of your progress, as the longer you can stick it out in that environment, the stronger you become at staying off them for good. Key is to never get too confident and have one again (or so I’m told) and I remind myself of that often!!!
A week off them today and I sleep without wheezing
The biggest warning is young people think it’s a problem to solve much later in life, “Yeh I’ll quit when I’m older”, so if it can lose its cool rebellious image for them the roots of this scourge will wither and die within a generation.
A direct school education programme is the best way. The “cool” factor will disappear when these stories are heard one to one. If these people were in your classroom for an hour would they have put you off??? Smoking is a no-win situation, but instead of berating the current smokers, let’s try to keep the younger kids from starting.
Nicely Said Tina!
@Niall
I’ve just noticed you seem to pushing down everyone’s necks that you enjoy smoking and you’ll never give up and your not a quiter and you know what your doing to your body and you don’t care cause you enjoy them. … blah blah blah… When the conversation goes off you, you seem to throw in another comment about how dedicated you are to them in the hope of a reaction…
We get it, you smoke, you dont care.
But maybe tone it down abit, I’m sure the families of these three poor people who do regret their decisions and who its to late for, who are trying to help and deter others don’t wanna hear it.
Gave up last year, read that Alan Carr book, brilliant, recommend anyone who is struggling to give it a read
Never give up, giving up!
Hey! I’m no quitter!! ;D
I got off smoking by vaping for over a year. The health improvement on shagged lungs was amazing and there was no turning back. The big deal was that it enabled a disconnect between the smell and the need. Then the desire to even vape dwindled. It was cheap too… As in €3 a month if you’re clever. The nicotine chewing gum wrecks your teeth and cost me a fortune in dentist fees and the other yokes such as patches etc are just a ripoff too. If vaping was promoted along with a ban on smoking tobacco it would save thousands of lives at a stroke. Nicotine is not the problem, we get it from many different plants. It’s the other 243 other toxins you get from fags that are the problem.. and governments and their tax addiction as well as the nicorette political lobby.
At least people who smoke electronic cigarettes to satisfy their addiction don’t smell so bad.
All these anti smoking scare tactics involve a far-off scenario that smokers think that they must be the exception to. As addicts, it’s in our nature to put up walls to filter ourselves from worst case scenario.
As a vaper, a full year off traditional cigarettes, all the benefits amaze me, especially not having a coughing fit every morning. Now I wonder how the hell I used to think that was normal.
Vaping is 99 to 100 per cent safer than inhaling burning twigs and the 4000 chemicals within.
I detest the smell of cigarettes off people.i smoked myself in my younger days.gave them up when I was expecting my first child.my husband never smoked and I think now he must have really loved me………..like kissing an ash tray.they are no good to anyone.
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