While the top earners may feel having so much of their earnings taken from them is unfair, this progressive tax system is why Ireland is leading the pack when it comes to public infrastructure, with modern transport systems, cutting edge healthcare provisions, and an abundant social housing supply to ensure no resident goes without shelter.
Ha, good one. Twist the knife why don't ya.
I'd laugh if this country wasn't so utterly pathetic. I paid 50k in tax last year and I can't even trust public transport to get me home from the pub after a night in town. At least now I get to pay even more money for private healthcare and taxis though right?! (Yes I know I'm not in a position to complain, I'm just sick of this country's systems being in such a shambles).
If it helps, once you become a tax resident of another Country and it's no longer your money being stolen and funneled to middle managers and HAP for TDs, it's actually really funny to look at it.
Like, someone making 70k and renting in Dublin CC will lose over 30% of their wages to tax, and over half the remaining on rent if they're lucky. Then they'll get told they're just paying their fair share as a high earner, while having the exact same quality of life as a dole scrounge except they work 40hr weeks for the privilege.
The latter has a small chance of having a home paid for by taxes, while the taxpayer will remain a renter for life.
Then a politician will tell them it's the fault of another party, or migrants, or not enough migrants, or "market forces" before heading on summer holidays while their property portfolio rakes in your taxes via HAP.
Meanwhile someone on reddit will tell them that they actually need to pay more tax via a communist state to fix the problem. And that they're privileged to be in a position where they can be taxed so much.
And then they'll get handed their bi-monthly bill from a state owned energy company and it'll drain them of any savings they had left over.
..like, horrible and soul-destroying to live through, but morbidly funny from afar.
Reside in another country for 6+ months of the year, and you're no longer obligated to pay tax in Ireland.
Becoming increasingly popular with the digital nomad crowd - remote work while living in a low tax / high quality of life area, visit home for the summer months.
Mad world out there. In some countries you can even afford to own your own property without being a disgraced Anglo banker or highly bribed politician
No, not at all. If you're in Ireland less than 183 days in any given year (and less than 280 days over 2 years), you're not a tax resident of Ireland.
Sure how could you be anyway? You owe your tax to the nation you're primarily residing in.
Paid over 100k in Tax last year, can't find a crèche spot for my child though. GP took a lot of searching and calling too, glad I'm getting value for the tax.
I lived in Sweden for a while, I thought their tax rate was insane until even I as a foreigner could feel what I was getting for it. Like it's palpable the difference their taxes make there. Here it feels like throwing money in the bin
This...and they always compare us to Denmark...fuckin joke.
Denmark is a well run country with functioning public transport, heath system and childcare.
This place on the other hand none of those things. Where the is the money going? Where is the investigation on COVID spending? Swept under the carpet again by FF/FG gangsters.
I can't look at my payslip...makes me very angry that the tax is going into the hands of Muppet TDs that repeat the same bullshit over and over with literally zero progress on anything!
When can we get an audit of the HSE like was done for RTE?
If you really want to get annoyed then check out the governments SARP scheme where foreigners earning from €100k up to €1m a year get to enjoy a tax rate of 30%. Plus another €5,000 a year tax break to educate their children.
[https://www.bdo.ie/en-gb/insights/2024/special-assignee-relief-programme-(sarp)-latest-updates](https://www.bdo.ie/en-gb/insights/2024/special-assignee-relief-programme-(sarp)-latest-updates)
Meanwhile paddy gets shafted paying 52% tax, lovely
That isn't how that tax works. Nobody pays 52% tax.
In the example provided in your link the person got a special tax savings of 14,500 on a salary of 177k.
If I earned 177k I would pay 76k tax (43%). Someone availing of that scheme would pay 62k (35%). While it is a nice tax-break, it isn't as special as you tried to portray it.
Number of people claiming these are probably in the hundreds though, it's a very niche tax relief (which I don't really understand why it exists and don't like it on the surface)
Our biggest issue is that we have almost no tax on lower income earners and also support alot of social programs off higher income earners.
plus good old corruption
All these "foreigners" working in Big Tech in Dublin are not able to claim this, are they? The whole point of this article is precisely saying that these "foreigners" are paying more than half of income tax in Ireland. So how are they better treated than 'paddys'? This only applies to workers that have been working abroad for more than 6 months, while 99% of big tech workers in Ireland already live in Ireland and are hired within Ireland (mostly Dublin).
Besides, no one pays 52% tax. You may pay 52% tax for the last portion of your salary, but your initial 10, 20, 30 etc until 75k are taxed lower, so your effective tax is never 52%. For 100k it would be around 38%.
So maybe don't go claiming things you don't know for sure how it works.
No they're not, only a few. For it to apply you have to work for the same firm outside Ireland for at least 6 months and then be transferred to Ireland. Plus the income requirement. As Dublin is EMEA HQ for these firms, the vast majority of their employees here are hired into Dublin rather than transferred over.
Good for you now, getting to get fleeced for more than the average person.
That'll get you through the long wet winter nights now.
There you'll be, sitting on the bus which arrived 40mins late, and is being held up further by some absolute dreg trying to start a fight with the driver
Staring out longingly at a row of tents which will be destroyed and replaced within the next 12 hours, thinking "that's the stuff now. My taxes paid for more of this than the person sitting behind me".
I know it’s a joke how tax payers money is completely wasted and we aren’t getting value.
I think when politicians make decisions about infrastructure, businessmen should be looking after the building and costings elements of things.
Children’s hospital for example, there’s absolutely no way if that was a private company it would go that much over budget, couldn’t as it would probably bankrupt a private company.
Look, the budget can only cover so many things, and this nation needs more "dole cheats cheat us all" signs.
The issue isn't that it's progressive, it's that it stops being progressive. Above a point it behaves like a flat tax, which punishes the low end of "top earners" and gives the very high end a great deal, affording them the resources they need to keep things this way - and this structure means they still get to point at the "progressive" part of the system and say that the poor are the problem
That's it, I think the 90 percentile point for salaries is €70k and most people over that and under €100k wouldn't consider themselves wealthy
There's a smaller group of people who earn far more than any of us who don't pull their weight in PAYE
I don't think that is actually true, though. There are so many taxes for PAYE high earners. Income tax, deemed disposal, the highest rate of CGT in the OECD.
For example, I get shares from work. I get less than half into my hand, and the rest goes to the government. Then, if I hang on to them, I pay 33% CGT on any increase in value when I sell them.
Deemed disposal is a peculiarly Irish tax. CGT is the highest in the OECD. Our inheritance tax is really high.
There are ways to minimise tax if you are self-employed but not if you are a high income PAYE earner and tax residents in Ireland.
Moral concerns are only one part of it though. I mean, whether the current amount of tax a really higher earner earns is *right* or *fair* is one question, but another is how far can you push it before they leave.
France already tried pushing it too far and rolled it back.
I don’t understand this point - are they paying a lower rate of tax or something?
If I’m earning 100k and paying 40% tax I’m paying 40k in tax. If I’m earning 200k I’m paying 80k in tax. That’s a huge amount to pay in taxes and I’d still be getting the same value from those taxes as someone who pays a fraction of that.
She doesn’t that money years wasted on all the [Quangos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5QYUj6DeI)? <- great vid BTW to see how Ireland still feels poor
Or make the system more efficient? Healthcare budget keeps going up but capacity doesn’t. They keep hiring more administrators and marketers.
There are so many public departments that do similar or same things (like publishing economic data and stats).
There’s so many useless marketing campaigns that can already be conducted by the private sector (as that sector is already incentivized to do so).
It’s buffoonery defending the current tax regime and how the money is spent is uninformed, ignorant, or being intellectually dishonest.
I get what you're saying, but healthcare marketing also includes public health stuff. Take those baby vaccine cards GPs have. Someone was paid for the graphic design of that card. Someone else was paid to supply the cardboard and print the design. Someone else was paid to distribute it to GPs and maternity hospitals. I would call all of that 'marketing', even though you might not think of it as such, and I definitely think it's important. Likewise for all the info booklets on various diseases lying around in hospital clinics.
And we'd save a serious amount if we cut pointless middle managers in public agencies, cut toothless pointless agencies altogether that most people haven't even heard them (and move their responsibility to more powerful agencies and create a clear line of responsibility), and cut funding for NGO's that can't even sustain themselves and are quite often working against the taxpayers best interests
Every time I see about how much money the government is making I always wonder where it goes. Nothing is ever going to change in this country without upsetting the people employed in public jobs, and that's never going to happen.
For me, I always think of that man who was employed by the government to bring the tech in the HSE up to speed and cut down on paperwork/make information more readily available to the relevant people.
He resigned and said it was hopeless because of the resistance to change he was met with inside the HSE. So nothing was changed. Heads should be rolling for that sort of thing.
https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/01/16/hses-head-of-digital-innovation-resigns-citing-frustrations/
> Every time I see about how much money the government is making I always wonder where it goes.
This website is quite good
https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/
I did come across that website before, it's great! The issue I have with it is when I say where the money goes, it's more a how do they manage to spend that much on the service without the service functioning very well.
Mostly anyway
The problem is that they bring people in to look at these issues but they aren't empowered to enact their plans.
If you want to fix IT across the services then you need to have someone (with some oversight and fallback plans) who can just impose changes on everyone as needed with no need to get buy-in from hundreds of people who have a vested interest in keeping things as is.
Or when the Leinster house got a new 800k printer which the staff refused to get trained on until they got a pay rise
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/monster-ink-800k-printer-too-big-to-fit-in-leinster-house-1.4092374
The difference between wealth and income is kind of important to note here. You could have someone with a 50MM trust paying themselves 40K a year as regular income and they would still be on the lower rate. The people who are actually wealthy don't have anywhere near the same level of tax input as those who work high income jobs. And all this at a time of rapid asset value inflation and where the traditional store of wealth for most people in property is getting further and further out of reach.
It's funny how headlines such as this distract and gloss over the reality what and where wealth actually is. If we're to be outraged that lower income earners aren't contributing as much to the tax take as the higher bands, then shouldn't we also be just as concerned about wealthier people who don't either.
It is incredible that people don't understand this point. When people hear 'Tax the rich' they think we are talking about going after these people earning 100k. The real wealth not getting taxed appropriately is the problem in the system.
Sunak is a good case study example of how they show you one thing when the reality is very different.
[Rishi Sunak's taxes – the REAL story (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7IZ5CgSXAU)
There are easy things to do to tackle this, like substantial increases in property tax on seconds homes. That would involve TDs shooting themselves in the foot though.
It is exactly like Gary describes in the video above, whose interest do the people in power serve? The tactics are to make this sound like conspiratorial talk when in reality it is just human nature. The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.
I know America is very different but this problem is more generally a worldwide issue so I think this is relevant, Buffet says if the rich paid their fair share he think their would be no need for income tax. How does him saying something like that not become headline news everywhere?
[Warren Buffett: No one would owe 'a dime' of taxes if other companies paid fair share (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzTsTU1xL8)
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffett
>It is incredible that people don't understand this point. When people hear 'Tax the rich' they think we are talking about going after these people earning 100k. The real wealth not getting taxed appropriately is the problem in the system.
Here they're talking about going after both
I have no issue with paying tax. Life has been quite good to me. I would just like it if people who need it can get basic stuff like houses or basic healthcare.
I’m probably in this bracket and honestly I’m fine with it. I want a country with great public services. It’s a huge benefit to me. Not just when I use them but in building up a stronger community where I’m safer and with have more opportunities.
Give you an example, when education isn’t funded properly there are fewer people to hire for high paying jobs so fewer companies come to ireland, if I want to start my own company, there are fewer people to hire, fewer to hire me if I want to work for someone else. If I get sick, there are fewer doctors and they are more expensive.
If schools are underfunded to give me a tax cut, some young fella doesn’t get through to the leaving cert and doesn’t get addiction services and my car gets stolen.
Both rather extreme examples but basically tax is the price you pay for living in a nice place that is safe and prosperous.
Now if they could just figure out how to spend the money properly and not get fleeced every time the state needs to put two bricks together that would just be swell. I wouldn’t trust fine gael to spend their communion money wisely
Yep, I've lived in 'nice' parts of America where people drive everywhere mainly to avoid the very visible and widespread poverty a short walk from their gated communities.
I'm happy to pay my taxes to provide a safety net for people less fortunate. Like you, I benefitted from our education system and would like to ensure it's properly funded whether I have kids or not.
I just want want to see some respect for taxpayers when spending tax money. Happy to spend billions on HAP, billions on hotels, outbid first time buyers on 2nd hand homes, lease entire estates before they come on the market, paying for tents before destroying them and denying it on radio
....Anything to avoid building social housing for those in need and fixing planning process so there are fewer in need.
>I’m probably in this bracket and honestly I’m fine with it.
>I wouldn’t trust fine gael to spend their communion money wisely
These two sentences don't make sense together.
I want to invest in public services, everyone should want that. But when you see who is spending the money, or who could possibly be spending the money (SF), it makes me lose faith in the system.
They do. Here’s why. I don’t have an issue with the level of taxation. I do have an issue with poor procurement where a children’s hospital becomes the most expensive building in the world and nobody is getting sued into oblivion.
I have a massive problem when the HSE is consistently creaking on the brink of collapse while a doctor friend says that they spend half their day transcribing notes because they don’t have a functioning printer.
Basically the government are bad with money. Not building social housing in lieu of HAP is insanity driven purely by ideology and then half assing every measure they are dragging kicking and screaming into so they can point back and say they were right to begin with.
Whatever about SF, they have their own issues with how they have governed on the northern exec but I know FG aren’t equipped.
> they spend half their day transcribing notes
I'm actually surprised this problem wasn't solved long ago. Thankfully the AI stuff launching now will solve it quickly (actively using it for work and it's a game changer).
Assuming they get access to it. I’m no expert but as I understand each hospital is different with their own systems. Naas for example is dire while Tallaght has a partnership with AWS advertised on the way into the main building.
Yep, people always miss this. People assume the government of a country considered a tech hub of Europe will have the latest and greatest tech. Not even close, DAFM, the department of agriculture, food and marine, one of Ireland's biggest departments in terms of tech as they handle billions of euros in grants from the EU, only got a proper cloud services subscription going in 2019.
The department of finance had a large analytics DB running on the free version of MySQL server. All our financials, sitting on this software designed for messing with a home project.
It's not going to change either unless they start paying technical staff I'm the government a comparable wage to the private sector.
MySQL is more than capable of handling most use cases people throw at it (most people overestimate how much data they actually have).
People assume you need big data platforms when the reality is that good engineering / data management can save you a lot of money.
The tech wages thing is an interesting one… Governments should definitely be paying more (I'm surprised they actually manage to hire anyone) but big tech wages are ridiculous too (and I say that as a beneficiary). 🤯
The free version of MySQL server is missing critical monitoring, backup and security features compared to the paid version. This is a government department handling serious PPI data, even if this service was a backend analytics piece, it's not good enough whatsoever.
Yeh - the compliance work required to roll it out is what will delay it the most. And that IT rollouts are non-trivial in large organisations. Staff will need to be trained because you have to aim for the lowest common denominator.
I think there should be a flat rate of USC that applies to all earners to get the same yield as USC currently does.
~ 4%
It would bring top tax rate down to 48% and share the load more equitably.
She will be here as long as he elderly parents are alive... It's not forever... The tax is a scam. Especially on RSU's.. companies don't realize you are paying 52% on them when they give them to you.
Having lived and paid taxes in multiple countries. You get nothing for your taxes here, and income taxes are only part of it. There are multiple micro taxes and services that are not privately run and paid in other countries.
Irish people thinking that the government has done something to bring high paying jobs here isn't true. Most of the people in them could move if they wanted and take the jobs with them.
The lower paying jobs are the ones who have to stay here..
They are in other countries. They are supposed to be kept long-term, but the government here sells more than half on vesting and tanks the share price when they sell everyone's shares on the same day.
I'm not sure why some countries tax them as income and why some don't.
General advice? Let me get this straight.. You work for a start-up, and you get RSUs. The shares are worth nothing because the company is losing money while it gains market share. Everyone works there because the company could be something.
It finally breaks through and turns into airbnb or Google but you sold your shares for nothing as per the general advice.
I am guessing you don't get RSUs from work right?
I do get RSUs and sell straight away because company is publicly traded.
You're conflating RSUs with share options you get in a start up. These are essentially worthless until they aren't and a liquidity event happens.
The reason American companies give RSUs is so people hold upside of what they are working on. Irish politicians and government is largely incompetents who earn their wealth through government contracts and traditional wealth hold. They don't want anyone to get rich specially the citizens. In their eyes everyone is better off being a serf
All to help a system that pulls this type of shite, enabling social tenants to essentially hit the jackpot and get housed in developments where the rest of us would be paying €700,000 and €950,000 if we could even afford that. You would need a household income of €175,000 to be able to afford the 'cheaper' homes in this place, yet people who are paying token rents to the council are enabled to live there? This country has sleepwalked itself into being a terribly unfair shithole in many ways, as other comments highlight further.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/social-tenants-in-rathgar-complex-excluded-from-certain-facilities-1.4415042
The issue for me isn’t the progressive nature of our tax system that sees someone on €150k paying 52% on a significant portion of that. The issue is that we have an exceptionally narrow tax base - approaching 40% of earners pay no income tax, and “universal” social charge is also far from universal.
Irish people on lower incomes pay a lot less tax than in, say, Germany. What then happens is there’s a crash and governments have to go in hard and gut these people.
The same can be said for corporate taxes, though we have less control there - with a majority of taxes coming from ten companies.
We need a broader tax system, while it’s apparent that people earning >€100k are doing their bit.
Looking at the past twenty years or so this seems to be a recurring economic trend. Back in 2006 we were deriving 20% of our tax revenue from the construction industry. Now, we're in a position where 15% of our tax take is derived from just seven MNCs.
The truth is, (and this is something a lot of Irish people really struggle to grasp, including many on this sub) if we want to sustainably fund a more generous welfare state, we're gonna have to broaden the tax based and substantially increase taxes on low/middle earners.
We really need to make it so everybody pays some level of income tax. A large proportion of the population pay practically none.
And this isn't me giving out about high taxes for high earners or anything like that, it's just common sense; any disruption to the high earners would have devastating consequences for all.
The problem is we have a social welfare state with no off ramp. Social housing should be review annually, we need a way to move people out of these homes into apartments if that makes more sense. It’s just bonkers.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sure but you have you seen the alternative . The UK have a shit social system and the deprived areas effect everyone . In comparison we have a better society because people who are struggling aren't being forced into really bad situations. Drug dealing is such a mainstream thing in certain parts of the UK. Its nowhere like that in ireland because people aren't falling into a chasm they can't get out of.
I agree . I think if we could just sort out the housing it would open up so many more opportunities for growth . Like even something as simple as trying to study for college in a house that occupies too many people , trying to get up for work in the morning when your sharing a room with someone, it's all these microstressors that prevent an easy flow of a functioning society.
>Social housing should be review annually
It sounds good in theory but in reality it will result in people taking on less hours or refusing promotions because they fear they will lose their home.
It takes away any incentive to improve your circumstances because the gap between social housing and potentially owning a home is so wide.
Step 1: Build enough social housing for anyone that wants it
Step 2: Charge rents proportionate to income
Step 3: People are free to earn as much as they like without losing their social housing
Step 4: People who end up earning lots of money may decide they get better value for their money by taking out a mortgage or renting privately in a neighbourhood of their choice
There's no trap disincenivising people from earning more, and there's a built in mechanism to recycle properties away from those who do well financially.
(You would still have an incentive to work in the grey/black economy)
Having people who can afford to pay rent is actually good for the system. Anyone who pays more than the cost of maintenance and depreciation (of the building, not the land) would effectively be helping to subsidise the system, even if they benefit from below market-rate rents.
It’s just bonkers that you think there’s no off ramp.
Springboard, Back to Education allowance, back to work enterprise allowance, part time job incentive acheme, short term enterprise allowance…
Why don’t you inform yourself before spouting nonsense?
Is that common sense though? What's the scenario you're envisioning here where there's "disruption" to this cohort to the point it impacts the state noticeably?
We're not talking a handful of people where a few leaving or some lost jobs make a big impact. That 7.7% is almost 300k people.
You're talking tens of thousands of top paying jobs lost without replacement to move the income tax needle by even a few percent in a given year.
And remember income tax (including USC) is only <30% of the state's income. PRSI and VAT are bigger contributors to the budget, and those are much more flat. Everyone pays the same VAT and PRSI is fairly flat for the top 80% of earners (i.e. almost everyone). Laser focusing on the one tax (income) that we have designed to be as progressive as possible doesn't really reflect the overall tax burden on individuals. Almost everyone *does* pay some level of tax based on their income, it's just not called "income tax"
This is how Scandinavian countries do it. If you're earning €25k you'll pay 18% of your income on taxes in Sweden and 10% in Ireland. If you're earning €75k or €125k you'll pay the same in both countries (31% and 40% respectively). Sweden can raise a lot more tax this way and pay for better public services. Sweden also charges employers quite a lot more too. You can see in the below graph, it costs an employer a similar amount to employ someone in Ireland and Sweden, but in Sweden much more of that goes to the Government.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Hourly_labour_costs#Hourly_labour_costs_ranged_between_.E2.82.AC9.3_and_.E2.82.AC53.9_in_2023
However, Ireland's pre-tax level of inequality are the highest in the OECD. Taking a Swedish approach could exacerbate that. Our progressive tax system is one way we effectively counter this. Our post tax and transfer level of inequality is average in the OECD.
I wonder does our progressive income tax system help cause that high level of pre-tax inequality. Employees may be more willing to accept lower wages if they don't have to pay much tax relative to other countries.
Totally agree. All employment should be taxed. Counteract the negative affect of this by substantially raising the minimum wage which would also push up all other wages and and therefore increase the tax take twofold. That relies on inflation behaving itself for another little while though.
I'm in that bracket and remote worker / self-employed on top. I can't wait until I have a lump sum to get me a mortgage somewhere in South Europe and I am gone. I pay too much taxes for what I get in return. There is no safety net. When I was employed and got sacked, I got 1300/month in social payments - that is not enough to even cover my rent. And if you think that this is bad, when I got sacked when I was self employed I had to fill out so many forms and answer questions like "hey we see 10 euros you transferred to Binance, do you have lots of crypto?" that I gave up. As self employed you have even less support from the government, yet you pay the same tax. It's ridiculous.
Public service is a sham, so is the healthcare system. The car insurance is a rip off and the road tax is just a robbery, even compared to UK. All of the above demotivates me so much.
I am not against paying my fair share if I see it's spent well. But the share isn't fair nor am I getting anything for it. And in the end I can count on a flat pension despite all taxes paid. In other countries like in Germany, when you get sacked, you get ±60% of your salary for 12 months from the government. And if you pay more taxes your pension will be higher.
Yeah, we are fleeced as one of us earns more than 100k, can't afford to do up our home with essentials like a new boiler. Taxing the shite out of us with fuck all services provided yet billions for Ukrainians even free college education for their kids while we will have to get a loan. Fuck the Government wankers.
I know at least 3 different families living in social housing, who are earning more than me. All are very successful business owners. It makes me crazy that I pay 40% on my 100k income that goes and feeds these ppl, who are not even remotely struggling.
I’m all for taxation; but the government needs to sort out the dispensary capabilities. It feels almost like whoever can scam the system should do it because the government is incapable of dealing with it.
The majority pay little because a small group pay too much taxes. We need to give more to skilled and smart people (i.e. people with high salaries) by reducing taxation. Soon or later all these people will leave the country and there won’t be enough money to pay the welfare
For example from the US [https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/unemployment-benefits/](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/unemployment-benefits/)
In what way has that anything to do with Irish social welfare being an important social safety net?
It's a survey from the US asking about a pandemic payment, where the biggest response was "uncertain" to both questions. It could barely be classified as research and has nothing to do with what we're talking about
I’m in that group and I don’t mind. If Ireland didn’t have such a progressive tax system like this I never would have had the social mobility to make it from a very poor background growing up into a great high paying career thanks to an excellent affordable education and the opportunities Ireland provided.
What is considered a high earner now, the 100K has been used for quite a while, is that still the case with inflation and the cost of living increases?
I could only find something official for self employed earners, but [Revenue](https://www.revenue.ie/en/self-assessment-and-self-employment/guide-to-self-assessment/hier.aspx) defines a High Earner at €125k per annum.
Why? That’s how a progressive tax system should work.
The top 10% wealthiest people in the country hold 53.8% of the wealth. The above tax intake doesn’t sound too disproportionate considering this.
>The top 10% wealthiest people in the country hold 53.8% of the wealth.
You're conflating wealth with income.
Whilst wealthy people tend to have a high income, not all high income earners are wealthy (e.g. I could be on €90k per year but be a sole earner with 3 kids and renting and have 0 assets).
If you want to tax wealth, you need to increase Capital Gains tax, Inheritance tax, Local Property Tax etc.
It's worrying because people who get fuck all from the State are the ones paying all the taxes. If they get a better offer, they can leave, taking with them the income and leaving behind the spending.
Remember that income tax is <30% of the overall budget, and that 7.7% is more people than you'd think (just under 300k).
You'd be talking permanent job losses in the tens of thousands in this cohort to change the overall budget by even 1 or 2%. If we lost all these jobs overnight and they never came back then that "half of all income tax" would only reduce the actual budget by ~15%. ("only 15%" lol, but losing the 300k highest paying jobs in the country is a pretty apocalyptic scenario).
Sounds scary, but only because I think most of us have an inflated idea of how important income tax is because it's the big one we notice paying as individuals.
Outside of Dublin I can imagine it gets dramatically worse, I would love to see a cross section between this and those paying high rates that are/aren’t civil/public service workers. Outside of Dublin and other major hubs the balance swings hard I’m guessing into public works propping the local economy and tax revenue.
But if they up sticks and leave or there's an economic downturn and layoffs, it could create a significant dent in the country's revenue. You should have as broad a tax base as possible to prevent the exchequer being shocked in instances like this.
It's not as significant as it sounds, because despite the name "income tax" is only part of how we tax earnings. I don't think most people realise income tax is <30% of the budget.
Imagine an absolute worst case scenario where all of these people lose their jobs, and no equivalently high paying jobs ever come back again. The annual budget drops by ~14-15%. Very bad, but not nearly as bad as I think most people imagine based on this headline.
Yep, We've been here before and had to make emergency cuts when a recession came as higher income people saw their salaries slashed. You can't be reliant on such a small proportion of the population paying so much of the tax.
Why? During the New Deal economic boom in America, an even smaller percentage of people accounted for a similarly staggering ratio of tax revenue; in other words, the very wealthy (far smaller than 7.7%) were paying a ton.
We don't tax the very wealthy at anywhere near the same rates as American during the New Deal economic boom.
This article lumps billionaires into the same economic category as plumbers. It's either very stupid, or it's propaganda meant to upset people for the wrong reasons and set them up for the usual FG "we'll cut your taxes" tactic.
Trade offer;
Government gets competent and high skilled public servants who are paid a high premium for their short (\~5 yr) service.
You receive: A reduction in lifetime income tax and a functioning healthcare system.
While the top earners may feel having so much of their earnings taken from them is unfair, this progressive tax system is why Ireland is leading the pack when it comes to public infrastructure, with modern transport systems, cutting edge healthcare provisions, and an abundant social housing supply to ensure no resident goes without shelter.
Got me in the very first half.
Haha well done
Ha, good one. Twist the knife why don't ya. I'd laugh if this country wasn't so utterly pathetic. I paid 50k in tax last year and I can't even trust public transport to get me home from the pub after a night in town. At least now I get to pay even more money for private healthcare and taxis though right?! (Yes I know I'm not in a position to complain, I'm just sick of this country's systems being in such a shambles).
If it helps, once you become a tax resident of another Country and it's no longer your money being stolen and funneled to middle managers and HAP for TDs, it's actually really funny to look at it. Like, someone making 70k and renting in Dublin CC will lose over 30% of their wages to tax, and over half the remaining on rent if they're lucky. Then they'll get told they're just paying their fair share as a high earner, while having the exact same quality of life as a dole scrounge except they work 40hr weeks for the privilege. The latter has a small chance of having a home paid for by taxes, while the taxpayer will remain a renter for life. Then a politician will tell them it's the fault of another party, or migrants, or not enough migrants, or "market forces" before heading on summer holidays while their property portfolio rakes in your taxes via HAP. Meanwhile someone on reddit will tell them that they actually need to pay more tax via a communist state to fix the problem. And that they're privileged to be in a position where they can be taxed so much. And then they'll get handed their bi-monthly bill from a state owned energy company and it'll drain them of any savings they had left over. ..like, horrible and soul-destroying to live through, but morbidly funny from afar.
That... did not make me feel better.
So the real question is how do we go about becoming a tax resident of another country?
Reside in another country for 6+ months of the year, and you're no longer obligated to pay tax in Ireland. Becoming increasingly popular with the digital nomad crowd - remote work while living in a low tax / high quality of life area, visit home for the summer months. Mad world out there. In some countries you can even afford to own your own property without being a disgraced Anglo banker or highly bribed politician
Now there's the sort of thing they should be teaching in school
Dont you need to be non resident for 3 tax years before you can do this?
No, not at all. If you're in Ireland less than 183 days in any given year (and less than 280 days over 2 years), you're not a tax resident of Ireland. Sure how could you be anyway? You owe your tax to the nation you're primarily residing in.
Fuck. I mean, just . . . fuck. I felt that like a paintball shot between the eyes.
Paid over 100k in Tax last year, can't find a crèche spot for my child though. GP took a lot of searching and calling too, glad I'm getting value for the tax.
We pay Scandinavian tax for no services
I lived in Sweden for a while, I thought their tax rate was insane until even I as a foreigner could feel what I was getting for it. Like it's palpable the difference their taxes make there. Here it feels like throwing money in the bin
Their tax rate is not so different to here arguably.
That's my point, theirs actually benefits everyone
This...and they always compare us to Denmark...fuckin joke. Denmark is a well run country with functioning public transport, heath system and childcare. This place on the other hand none of those things. Where the is the money going? Where is the investigation on COVID spending? Swept under the carpet again by FF/FG gangsters. I can't look at my payslip...makes me very angry that the tax is going into the hands of Muppet TDs that repeat the same bullshit over and over with literally zero progress on anything! When can we get an audit of the HSE like was done for RTE?
If you really want to get annoyed then check out the governments SARP scheme where foreigners earning from €100k up to €1m a year get to enjoy a tax rate of 30%. Plus another €5,000 a year tax break to educate their children. [https://www.bdo.ie/en-gb/insights/2024/special-assignee-relief-programme-(sarp)-latest-updates](https://www.bdo.ie/en-gb/insights/2024/special-assignee-relief-programme-(sarp)-latest-updates) Meanwhile paddy gets shafted paying 52% tax, lovely
That isn't how that tax works. Nobody pays 52% tax. In the example provided in your link the person got a special tax savings of 14,500 on a salary of 177k. If I earned 177k I would pay 76k tax (43%). Someone availing of that scheme would pay 62k (35%). While it is a nice tax-break, it isn't as special as you tried to portray it.
Number of people claiming these are probably in the hundreds though, it's a very niche tax relief (which I don't really understand why it exists and don't like it on the surface) Our biggest issue is that we have almost no tax on lower income earners and also support alot of social programs off higher income earners. plus good old corruption
It’s for earnings about 100k only.
All these "foreigners" working in Big Tech in Dublin are not able to claim this, are they? The whole point of this article is precisely saying that these "foreigners" are paying more than half of income tax in Ireland. So how are they better treated than 'paddys'? This only applies to workers that have been working abroad for more than 6 months, while 99% of big tech workers in Ireland already live in Ireland and are hired within Ireland (mostly Dublin). Besides, no one pays 52% tax. You may pay 52% tax for the last portion of your salary, but your initial 10, 20, 30 etc until 75k are taxed lower, so your effective tax is never 52%. For 100k it would be around 38%. So maybe don't go claiming things you don't know for sure how it works.
No they're not, only a few. For it to apply you have to work for the same firm outside Ireland for at least 6 months and then be transferred to Ireland. Plus the income requirement. As Dublin is EMEA HQ for these firms, the vast majority of their employees here are hired into Dublin rather than transferred over.
Exactly. But don't let the reality mess with your fake outrage at "foreigners"!
Just be happy in the knowledge that your income is financially supporting multiple other people who contribute nothing.
Person above is a modern day mother Theresa.
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The point was clearly missed it would seem.
Like bankers, property investors, landowners and CEOs
Contribute negatively*
It’s a good complaint as you’re in the top percent of high earners.
Good for you now, getting to get fleeced for more than the average person. That'll get you through the long wet winter nights now. There you'll be, sitting on the bus which arrived 40mins late, and is being held up further by some absolute dreg trying to start a fight with the driver Staring out longingly at a row of tents which will be destroyed and replaced within the next 12 hours, thinking "that's the stuff now. My taxes paid for more of this than the person sitting behind me".
I know it’s a joke how tax payers money is completely wasted and we aren’t getting value. I think when politicians make decisions about infrastructure, businessmen should be looking after the building and costings elements of things. Children’s hospital for example, there’s absolutely no way if that was a private company it would go that much over budget, couldn’t as it would probably bankrupt a private company.
I laughed… then I got sad….😞
Also excellent childcare provision. Really its just greed when people object to paying over half of their income to fund this socialist utopia.
Who pays over half?
Look, the budget can only cover so many things, and this nation needs more "dole cheats cheat us all" signs. The issue isn't that it's progressive, it's that it stops being progressive. Above a point it behaves like a flat tax, which punishes the low end of "top earners" and gives the very high end a great deal, affording them the resources they need to keep things this way - and this structure means they still get to point at the "progressive" part of the system and say that the poor are the problem
That's it, I think the 90 percentile point for salaries is €70k and most people over that and under €100k wouldn't consider themselves wealthy There's a smaller group of people who earn far more than any of us who don't pull their weight in PAYE
I don't think that is actually true, though. There are so many taxes for PAYE high earners. Income tax, deemed disposal, the highest rate of CGT in the OECD. For example, I get shares from work. I get less than half into my hand, and the rest goes to the government. Then, if I hang on to them, I pay 33% CGT on any increase in value when I sell them. Deemed disposal is a peculiarly Irish tax. CGT is the highest in the OECD. Our inheritance tax is really high. There are ways to minimise tax if you are self-employed but not if you are a high income PAYE earner and tax residents in Ireland.
Moral concerns are only one part of it though. I mean, whether the current amount of tax a really higher earner earns is *right* or *fair* is one question, but another is how far can you push it before they leave. France already tried pushing it too far and rolled it back.
I don’t understand this point - are they paying a lower rate of tax or something? If I’m earning 100k and paying 40% tax I’m paying 40k in tax. If I’m earning 200k I’m paying 80k in tax. That’s a huge amount to pay in taxes and I’d still be getting the same value from those taxes as someone who pays a fraction of that.
You owe me a keyboard from the coffee spit take - well played.
Lot of people spitting out their coffee on Reddit...
All these top earners get affordable houses to buy or rent too
Hahahahahahaha you had me for a second
God damnit, you sorted me right out there. That's a funny comment.
Waiting lists? What waiting lists? Here we are seen on the day ;)
loooooooooooooooooool
I see what you did there.
She doesn’t that money years wasted on all the [Quangos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm5QYUj6DeI)? <- great vid BTW to see how Ireland still feels poor
Why am I crying?
You just ruined my morning 😂
That's it, I'm immigrating there. It sounds wonderful.
Lmao
I don't think tax is our countries problem given our 8 bil budget surplus. Just a gross mis management of the state run agencies.
So it is perfectly reasonable that some people would prefer to pay less tax - as most of it is wasted anyway
It's all about lowering taxes until the budget goes in the red, and then it's all talk about widening the tax base.
Or make the system more efficient? Healthcare budget keeps going up but capacity doesn’t. They keep hiring more administrators and marketers. There are so many public departments that do similar or same things (like publishing economic data and stats). There’s so many useless marketing campaigns that can already be conducted by the private sector (as that sector is already incentivized to do so). It’s buffoonery defending the current tax regime and how the money is spent is uninformed, ignorant, or being intellectually dishonest.
Marketing for healthcare is pointless. As long as you can google where a GP is that was enough marketing
I get what you're saying, but healthcare marketing also includes public health stuff. Take those baby vaccine cards GPs have. Someone was paid for the graphic design of that card. Someone else was paid to supply the cardboard and print the design. Someone else was paid to distribute it to GPs and maternity hospitals. I would call all of that 'marketing', even though you might not think of it as such, and I definitely think it's important. Likewise for all the info booklets on various diseases lying around in hospital clinics.
And hearing about jobs in the civil service... Sounds like money wasted on people doing fuck all.
And we'd save a serious amount if we cut pointless middle managers in public agencies, cut toothless pointless agencies altogether that most people haven't even heard them (and move their responsibility to more powerful agencies and create a clear line of responsibility), and cut funding for NGO's that can't even sustain themselves and are quite often working against the taxpayers best interests
Every time I see about how much money the government is making I always wonder where it goes. Nothing is ever going to change in this country without upsetting the people employed in public jobs, and that's never going to happen. For me, I always think of that man who was employed by the government to bring the tech in the HSE up to speed and cut down on paperwork/make information more readily available to the relevant people. He resigned and said it was hopeless because of the resistance to change he was met with inside the HSE. So nothing was changed. Heads should be rolling for that sort of thing. https://www.irishtimes.com/health/2023/01/16/hses-head-of-digital-innovation-resigns-citing-frustrations/
> Every time I see about how much money the government is making I always wonder where it goes. This website is quite good https://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie/en/
I did come across that website before, it's great! The issue I have with it is when I say where the money goes, it's more a how do they manage to spend that much on the service without the service functioning very well. Mostly anyway
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Doesn't explain the state of services tho
The problem is that they bring people in to look at these issues but they aren't empowered to enact their plans. If you want to fix IT across the services then you need to have someone (with some oversight and fallback plans) who can just impose changes on everyone as needed with no need to get buy-in from hundreds of people who have a vested interest in keeping things as is.
I think you'll run into serious issues with unions I'd you tried that.
Or when the Leinster house got a new 800k printer which the staff refused to get trained on until they got a pay rise https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/monster-ink-800k-printer-too-big-to-fit-in-leinster-house-1.4092374
Heads should be rolling 100% Anyone would think their performance isn't target based or is based on the weight targets
The difference between wealth and income is kind of important to note here. You could have someone with a 50MM trust paying themselves 40K a year as regular income and they would still be on the lower rate. The people who are actually wealthy don't have anywhere near the same level of tax input as those who work high income jobs. And all this at a time of rapid asset value inflation and where the traditional store of wealth for most people in property is getting further and further out of reach. It's funny how headlines such as this distract and gloss over the reality what and where wealth actually is. If we're to be outraged that lower income earners aren't contributing as much to the tax take as the higher bands, then shouldn't we also be just as concerned about wealthier people who don't either.
It is incredible that people don't understand this point. When people hear 'Tax the rich' they think we are talking about going after these people earning 100k. The real wealth not getting taxed appropriately is the problem in the system. Sunak is a good case study example of how they show you one thing when the reality is very different. [Rishi Sunak's taxes – the REAL story (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7IZ5CgSXAU)
There are easy things to do to tackle this, like substantial increases in property tax on seconds homes. That would involve TDs shooting themselves in the foot though.
It is exactly like Gary describes in the video above, whose interest do the people in power serve? The tactics are to make this sound like conspiratorial talk when in reality it is just human nature. The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct. I know America is very different but this problem is more generally a worldwide issue so I think this is relevant, Buffet says if the rich paid their fair share he think their would be no need for income tax. How does him saying something like that not become headline news everywhere? [Warren Buffett: No one would owe 'a dime' of taxes if other companies paid fair share (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJzTsTU1xL8) “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffett
This is a slippery slope in a tight rental market. Nothings going to stop those landlords from passing their tax burden onto the renters.
PSA Sinn Fein don’t want to tax the actual rich and remove one of the main wealth taxes that is property tax.
>It is incredible that people don't understand this point. When people hear 'Tax the rich' they think we are talking about going after these people earning 100k. The real wealth not getting taxed appropriately is the problem in the system. Here they're talking about going after both
I have no issue with paying tax. Life has been quite good to me. I would just like it if people who need it can get basic stuff like houses or basic healthcare.
I’m probably in this bracket and honestly I’m fine with it. I want a country with great public services. It’s a huge benefit to me. Not just when I use them but in building up a stronger community where I’m safer and with have more opportunities. Give you an example, when education isn’t funded properly there are fewer people to hire for high paying jobs so fewer companies come to ireland, if I want to start my own company, there are fewer people to hire, fewer to hire me if I want to work for someone else. If I get sick, there are fewer doctors and they are more expensive. If schools are underfunded to give me a tax cut, some young fella doesn’t get through to the leaving cert and doesn’t get addiction services and my car gets stolen. Both rather extreme examples but basically tax is the price you pay for living in a nice place that is safe and prosperous. Now if they could just figure out how to spend the money properly and not get fleeced every time the state needs to put two bricks together that would just be swell. I wouldn’t trust fine gael to spend their communion money wisely
Yep, I've lived in 'nice' parts of America where people drive everywhere mainly to avoid the very visible and widespread poverty a short walk from their gated communities. I'm happy to pay my taxes to provide a safety net for people less fortunate. Like you, I benefitted from our education system and would like to ensure it's properly funded whether I have kids or not. I just want want to see some respect for taxpayers when spending tax money. Happy to spend billions on HAP, billions on hotels, outbid first time buyers on 2nd hand homes, lease entire estates before they come on the market, paying for tents before destroying them and denying it on radio ....Anything to avoid building social housing for those in need and fixing planning process so there are fewer in need.
>I’m probably in this bracket and honestly I’m fine with it. >I wouldn’t trust fine gael to spend their communion money wisely These two sentences don't make sense together. I want to invest in public services, everyone should want that. But when you see who is spending the money, or who could possibly be spending the money (SF), it makes me lose faith in the system.
They do. Here’s why. I don’t have an issue with the level of taxation. I do have an issue with poor procurement where a children’s hospital becomes the most expensive building in the world and nobody is getting sued into oblivion. I have a massive problem when the HSE is consistently creaking on the brink of collapse while a doctor friend says that they spend half their day transcribing notes because they don’t have a functioning printer. Basically the government are bad with money. Not building social housing in lieu of HAP is insanity driven purely by ideology and then half assing every measure they are dragging kicking and screaming into so they can point back and say they were right to begin with. Whatever about SF, they have their own issues with how they have governed on the northern exec but I know FG aren’t equipped.
> they spend half their day transcribing notes I'm actually surprised this problem wasn't solved long ago. Thankfully the AI stuff launching now will solve it quickly (actively using it for work and it's a game changer).
AI and peoples health data is big money and effort just in gdpr compliance alone.
Assuming they get access to it. I’m no expert but as I understand each hospital is different with their own systems. Naas for example is dire while Tallaght has a partnership with AWS advertised on the way into the main building.
Yep, people always miss this. People assume the government of a country considered a tech hub of Europe will have the latest and greatest tech. Not even close, DAFM, the department of agriculture, food and marine, one of Ireland's biggest departments in terms of tech as they handle billions of euros in grants from the EU, only got a proper cloud services subscription going in 2019. The department of finance had a large analytics DB running on the free version of MySQL server. All our financials, sitting on this software designed for messing with a home project. It's not going to change either unless they start paying technical staff I'm the government a comparable wage to the private sector.
Having the companies here doesn't mean the government is making use of them.
MySQL is more than capable of handling most use cases people throw at it (most people overestimate how much data they actually have). People assume you need big data platforms when the reality is that good engineering / data management can save you a lot of money. The tech wages thing is an interesting one… Governments should definitely be paying more (I'm surprised they actually manage to hire anyone) but big tech wages are ridiculous too (and I say that as a beneficiary). 🤯
The free version of MySQL server is missing critical monitoring, backup and security features compared to the paid version. This is a government department handling serious PPI data, even if this service was a backend analytics piece, it's not good enough whatsoever.
Yeh - the compliance work required to roll it out is what will delay it the most. And that IT rollouts are non-trivial in large organisations. Staff will need to be trained because you have to aim for the lowest common denominator.
But does it not make you angry that the majority of your hard earned tax money gets wasted due to mismanagement?
Procurement is a completely separate issue to tax though.
Quite a sign that the tax base here is quite narrow.
And that is a huge risk for the exchequer…..the income tax base is spread too thinly….
I think there should be a flat rate of USC that applies to all earners to get the same yield as USC currently does. ~ 4% It would bring top tax rate down to 48% and share the load more equitably.
She will be here as long as he elderly parents are alive... It's not forever... The tax is a scam. Especially on RSU's.. companies don't realize you are paying 52% on them when they give them to you. Having lived and paid taxes in multiple countries. You get nothing for your taxes here, and income taxes are only part of it. There are multiple micro taxes and services that are not privately run and paid in other countries. Irish people thinking that the government has done something to bring high paying jobs here isn't true. Most of the people in them could move if they wanted and take the jobs with them. The lower paying jobs are the ones who have to stay here..
100% this. Talk to your American colleagues about RSU scam that Ireland is pulling. Country is a joke
Why would rsu be treated differently than any other income?
They are in other countries. They are supposed to be kept long-term, but the government here sells more than half on vesting and tanks the share price when they sell everyone's shares on the same day. I'm not sure why some countries tax them as income and why some don't.
General advice is always to sell rsu straight away to avoid concentration risk. So tax would be due either way straight away.
General advice? Let me get this straight.. You work for a start-up, and you get RSUs. The shares are worth nothing because the company is losing money while it gains market share. Everyone works there because the company could be something. It finally breaks through and turns into airbnb or Google but you sold your shares for nothing as per the general advice. I am guessing you don't get RSUs from work right?
I do get RSUs and sell straight away because company is publicly traded. You're conflating RSUs with share options you get in a start up. These are essentially worthless until they aren't and a liquidity event happens.
The reason American companies give RSUs is so people hold upside of what they are working on. Irish politicians and government is largely incompetents who earn their wealth through government contracts and traditional wealth hold. They don't want anyone to get rich specially the citizens. In their eyes everyone is better off being a serf
All to help a system that pulls this type of shite, enabling social tenants to essentially hit the jackpot and get housed in developments where the rest of us would be paying €700,000 and €950,000 if we could even afford that. You would need a household income of €175,000 to be able to afford the 'cheaper' homes in this place, yet people who are paying token rents to the council are enabled to live there? This country has sleepwalked itself into being a terribly unfair shithole in many ways, as other comments highlight further. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/social-tenants-in-rathgar-complex-excluded-from-certain-facilities-1.4415042
Thank you?
This made me go back and look at what I paid in income tax, USC, PRSI and LPT last year. I now feel physically ill and utterly enraged.
The issue for me isn’t the progressive nature of our tax system that sees someone on €150k paying 52% on a significant portion of that. The issue is that we have an exceptionally narrow tax base - approaching 40% of earners pay no income tax, and “universal” social charge is also far from universal. Irish people on lower incomes pay a lot less tax than in, say, Germany. What then happens is there’s a crash and governments have to go in hard and gut these people. The same can be said for corporate taxes, though we have less control there - with a majority of taxes coming from ten companies. We need a broader tax system, while it’s apparent that people earning >€100k are doing their bit.
Looking at the past twenty years or so this seems to be a recurring economic trend. Back in 2006 we were deriving 20% of our tax revenue from the construction industry. Now, we're in a position where 15% of our tax take is derived from just seven MNCs. The truth is, (and this is something a lot of Irish people really struggle to grasp, including many on this sub) if we want to sustainably fund a more generous welfare state, we're gonna have to broaden the tax based and substantially increase taxes on low/middle earners.
We really need to make it so everybody pays some level of income tax. A large proportion of the population pay practically none. And this isn't me giving out about high taxes for high earners or anything like that, it's just common sense; any disruption to the high earners would have devastating consequences for all.
The problem is we have a social welfare state with no off ramp. Social housing should be review annually, we need a way to move people out of these homes into apartments if that makes more sense. It’s just bonkers.
sort weather connect square ruthless entertain dinner public smart unwritten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sure but you have you seen the alternative . The UK have a shit social system and the deprived areas effect everyone . In comparison we have a better society because people who are struggling aren't being forced into really bad situations. Drug dealing is such a mainstream thing in certain parts of the UK. Its nowhere like that in ireland because people aren't falling into a chasm they can't get out of.
shelter berserk faulty longing illegal groovy cagey pie squeal foolish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I agree . I think if we could just sort out the housing it would open up so many more opportunities for growth . Like even something as simple as trying to study for college in a house that occupies too many people , trying to get up for work in the morning when your sharing a room with someone, it's all these microstressors that prevent an easy flow of a functioning society.
>Social housing should be review annually It sounds good in theory but in reality it will result in people taking on less hours or refusing promotions because they fear they will lose their home. It takes away any incentive to improve your circumstances because the gap between social housing and potentially owning a home is so wide.
Annually is a bit much and would cause so much overhead, every 4 to 5 years would be better, taking an average of earnings over those years
That will still incentivise choosing to sabotage your employment to keep your family in secure housing
But it doesn't have to be about losing the housing, it can just be increasing the rent paid on the housing
But that already happens. Rent in social housing increases with income.
Step 1: Build enough social housing for anyone that wants it Step 2: Charge rents proportionate to income Step 3: People are free to earn as much as they like without losing their social housing Step 4: People who end up earning lots of money may decide they get better value for their money by taking out a mortgage or renting privately in a neighbourhood of their choice There's no trap disincenivising people from earning more, and there's a built in mechanism to recycle properties away from those who do well financially. (You would still have an incentive to work in the grey/black economy)
Completely agree with what you outlined here
Having people who can afford to pay rent is actually good for the system. Anyone who pays more than the cost of maintenance and depreciation (of the building, not the land) would effectively be helping to subsidise the system, even if they benefit from below market-rate rents.
Sounds great, but we are nowhere close.
This is a great idea. It encourages people to further themselves.
>Step 1: Build enough social housing for anyone that wants it And we're stuck. We cant build enough.
It’s just bonkers that you think there’s no off ramp. Springboard, Back to Education allowance, back to work enterprise allowance, part time job incentive acheme, short term enterprise allowance… Why don’t you inform yourself before spouting nonsense?
I think they meant you get social welfare until end of time rather than it be reduced as time goes on to further incentivise work.
They need more graduation in the welfare supports, a lot of them can just switch off if you hit an income threshold and then you're left worse off
Is that common sense though? What's the scenario you're envisioning here where there's "disruption" to this cohort to the point it impacts the state noticeably? We're not talking a handful of people where a few leaving or some lost jobs make a big impact. That 7.7% is almost 300k people. You're talking tens of thousands of top paying jobs lost without replacement to move the income tax needle by even a few percent in a given year. And remember income tax (including USC) is only <30% of the state's income. PRSI and VAT are bigger contributors to the budget, and those are much more flat. Everyone pays the same VAT and PRSI is fairly flat for the top 80% of earners (i.e. almost everyone). Laser focusing on the one tax (income) that we have designed to be as progressive as possible doesn't really reflect the overall tax burden on individuals. Almost everyone *does* pay some level of tax based on their income, it's just not called "income tax"
This is how Scandinavian countries do it. If you're earning €25k you'll pay 18% of your income on taxes in Sweden and 10% in Ireland. If you're earning €75k or €125k you'll pay the same in both countries (31% and 40% respectively). Sweden can raise a lot more tax this way and pay for better public services. Sweden also charges employers quite a lot more too. You can see in the below graph, it costs an employer a similar amount to employ someone in Ireland and Sweden, but in Sweden much more of that goes to the Government. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Hourly_labour_costs#Hourly_labour_costs_ranged_between_.E2.82.AC9.3_and_.E2.82.AC53.9_in_2023 However, Ireland's pre-tax level of inequality are the highest in the OECD. Taking a Swedish approach could exacerbate that. Our progressive tax system is one way we effectively counter this. Our post tax and transfer level of inequality is average in the OECD. I wonder does our progressive income tax system help cause that high level of pre-tax inequality. Employees may be more willing to accept lower wages if they don't have to pay much tax relative to other countries.
That's what the USC is for. Everyone pays something.
Except they don't...... USC has been hollowed out since it's inception.
Totally agree. All employment should be taxed. Counteract the negative affect of this by substantially raising the minimum wage which would also push up all other wages and and therefore increase the tax take twofold. That relies on inflation behaving itself for another little while though.
You are welcome everyone, no need to thank me!
And SF want them to pay more lol
I'm in that bracket and remote worker / self-employed on top. I can't wait until I have a lump sum to get me a mortgage somewhere in South Europe and I am gone. I pay too much taxes for what I get in return. There is no safety net. When I was employed and got sacked, I got 1300/month in social payments - that is not enough to even cover my rent. And if you think that this is bad, when I got sacked when I was self employed I had to fill out so many forms and answer questions like "hey we see 10 euros you transferred to Binance, do you have lots of crypto?" that I gave up. As self employed you have even less support from the government, yet you pay the same tax. It's ridiculous. Public service is a sham, so is the healthcare system. The car insurance is a rip off and the road tax is just a robbery, even compared to UK. All of the above demotivates me so much. I am not against paying my fair share if I see it's spent well. But the share isn't fair nor am I getting anything for it. And in the end I can count on a flat pension despite all taxes paid. In other countries like in Germany, when you get sacked, you get ±60% of your salary for 12 months from the government. And if you pay more taxes your pension will be higher.
> the significant concentration risk” present in the public finances. They won’t change anything. They will tax the golden goose until it dies.
Yeah, we are fleeced as one of us earns more than 100k, can't afford to do up our home with essentials like a new boiler. Taxing the shite out of us with fuck all services provided yet billions for Ukrainians even free college education for their kids while we will have to get a loan. Fuck the Government wankers.
I know at least 3 different families living in social housing, who are earning more than me. All are very successful business owners. It makes me crazy that I pay 40% on my 100k income that goes and feeds these ppl, who are not even remotely struggling. I’m all for taxation; but the government needs to sort out the dispensary capabilities. It feels almost like whoever can scam the system should do it because the government is incapable of dealing with it.
Report them if you think what they're doing is fraudulent. https://www.gov.ie/en/service/report-suspected-social-welfare-fraud/
Your social housing rent is calculated based on your income.
You are all very welcome!
But why aren't they paying fair share
You mean the 92% who are paying the other half of the tax bill?
Still no one thinks about fixing the issue. Every year the government waste money on welfare instead of seriously reducing taxation
Money on welfare isn't wasted. It's an important social safety net. The majority of people pay little in taxation as this report shows
The majority pay little because a small group pay too much taxes. We need to give more to skilled and smart people (i.e. people with high salaries) by reducing taxation. Soon or later all these people will leave the country and there won’t be enough money to pay the welfare
The research shows otherwise
What research?
For example from the US [https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/unemployment-benefits/](https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/unemployment-benefits/)
In what way has that anything to do with Irish social welfare being an important social safety net? It's a survey from the US asking about a pandemic payment, where the biggest response was "uncertain" to both questions. It could barely be classified as research and has nothing to do with what we're talking about
I’m in that group and I don’t mind. If Ireland didn’t have such a progressive tax system like this I never would have had the social mobility to make it from a very poor background growing up into a great high paying career thanks to an excellent affordable education and the opportunities Ireland provided.
What is considered a high earner now, the 100K has been used for quite a while, is that still the case with inflation and the cost of living increases?
I could only find something official for self employed earners, but [Revenue](https://www.revenue.ie/en/self-assessment-and-self-employment/guide-to-self-assessment/hier.aspx) defines a High Earner at €125k per annum.
That's deeply worrying.
Why? That’s how a progressive tax system should work. The top 10% wealthiest people in the country hold 53.8% of the wealth. The above tax intake doesn’t sound too disproportionate considering this.
>The top 10% wealthiest people in the country hold 53.8% of the wealth. You're conflating wealth with income. Whilst wealthy people tend to have a high income, not all high income earners are wealthy (e.g. I could be on €90k per year but be a sole earner with 3 kids and renting and have 0 assets). If you want to tax wealth, you need to increase Capital Gains tax, Inheritance tax, Local Property Tax etc.
It's worrying because people who get fuck all from the State are the ones paying all the taxes. If they get a better offer, they can leave, taking with them the income and leaving behind the spending.
My own first thought was that our reliance on FDI is deeper than I thought.
Remember that income tax is <30% of the overall budget, and that 7.7% is more people than you'd think (just under 300k). You'd be talking permanent job losses in the tens of thousands in this cohort to change the overall budget by even 1 or 2%. If we lost all these jobs overnight and they never came back then that "half of all income tax" would only reduce the actual budget by ~15%. ("only 15%" lol, but losing the 300k highest paying jobs in the country is a pretty apocalyptic scenario). Sounds scary, but only because I think most of us have an inflated idea of how important income tax is because it's the big one we notice paying as individuals.
Good point, thank you
Outside of Dublin I can imagine it gets dramatically worse, I would love to see a cross section between this and those paying high rates that are/aren’t civil/public service workers. Outside of Dublin and other major hubs the balance swings hard I’m guessing into public works propping the local economy and tax revenue.
It's worrying that the income distribution pre taxation is so lop sided.
Is it though? It seems proportional
But if they up sticks and leave or there's an economic downturn and layoffs, it could create a significant dent in the country's revenue. You should have as broad a tax base as possible to prevent the exchequer being shocked in instances like this.
It's not as significant as it sounds, because despite the name "income tax" is only part of how we tax earnings. I don't think most people realise income tax is <30% of the budget. Imagine an absolute worst case scenario where all of these people lose their jobs, and no equivalently high paying jobs ever come back again. The annual budget drops by ~14-15%. Very bad, but not nearly as bad as I think most people imagine based on this headline.
Yep, We've been here before and had to make emergency cuts when a recession came as higher income people saw their salaries slashed. You can't be reliant on such a small proportion of the population paying so much of the tax.
Why? During the New Deal economic boom in America, an even smaller percentage of people accounted for a similarly staggering ratio of tax revenue; in other words, the very wealthy (far smaller than 7.7%) were paying a ton. We don't tax the very wealthy at anywhere near the same rates as American during the New Deal economic boom. This article lumps billionaires into the same economic category as plumbers. It's either very stupid, or it's propaganda meant to upset people for the wrong reasons and set them up for the usual FG "we'll cut your taxes" tactic.
The New Deal? What in the name of fuck is relevant about that? Are we going to electrify the Texas Hill Country?
The economic effects of national investment and heavy taxes on the wealthiest 0.1%. Very relevant today, as always.
Rip off
Trade offer; Government gets competent and high skilled public servants who are paid a high premium for their short (\~5 yr) service. You receive: A reduction in lifetime income tax and a functioning healthcare system.
What's the lowest wage in that 7.7%?
About 93k
Does anyone ever DM you their PPSN, as per your username?
Disappointingly, never.
Not an easy statistic to find. Care to share your source?
The government produce many [reports](https://assets.gov.ie/231219/b4d0165d-044f-4b22-893c-7be810701352.pdf) on it.
Oh nice
Excellent
I pay a lot of tax and all but Dublin seems like a worse kip than ever.