The imminent introduction of water and property charges has sparked anger among most Irish people, not least because as flat charges, or poll taxes, they are unfair. This post outlines a better way of introducing an interim property charge, namely by breaking down the country into ten different bands based on land value, and then presents a map of the bands, based on 200,000 daft.ie ads in 2009 and 2010. Such an interim system would be significantly fairer and could be tailored to bring in €1.5bn when fully running.
Earlier this week, I posted about reforming Ireland’s tax system. I’ve now taken up a fortnightly slot on Wednesday evenings with IrishDebate.com – which has hosted a range of interesting discussions over the past few months – and last night, we discussed the points about tax reform I made in that post. The whole discussion [...]
21 Oct 10
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Posted in Video
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With Ireland’s next Budget now just seven weeks away, a plethora of proposals for what to do (and not to do) are being announced weekly. This post discusses just two measures – on income tax and on property tax – that could meet the Government’s targets of €2bn in new revenue next year and €6bn in new revenue by 2015.
This post reviews the findings in the latest Daft.ie House Price Report, for Q2 2010, finding news for both optimists and pessimists in average prices and the level of transactions. The report’s commentary is by Jim Power, who discusses the need for a property tax. The remainder of the post reviews the arguments in favour of a property tax in Ireland and recommends the introduction of a land value tax.
This post outlines some key considerations in Ireland’s Budget 2010, including the scale of the challenge the government faces, the imperative to cut spending, the growing role of national debt, capital expenditure and over-reliance on income taxes. It also makes some recommendations for measures in relation to tax credits, property tax and VAT.
This post outlines the content of a video discussion between myself and Karl Deeter. Topics included everything from property tax to how to price services like water and roads. Karl and I nail our colours to the mast by making specific predictions about population, unemployment and output per capita in Ireland in 2020 and we wrap up with a VoxPop in Dublin on Ireland’s economic future.
A quick overview of Sections 1 and 3 of the IMF report on Ireland, which look at economic competitiveness, prices and wages, and taxes and public expenditure.
With talk of an imminent property tax, people are trying to make the case that ‘Ireland is different’ – it’s possible elsewhere but not here. This post outlines some of the most common difficulties people raise, and how to overcome them.
S&P has downgraded Ireland’s debt rating – again – while latest Government figures show that Ireland faces a €12bn hole in its tax revenues this year, compared to 2007. This post outlines where the hole has come from and how it can be tackled. This will require an open debate, though, which will involve sacred cows such as Ireland’s corporate tax rate and a property tax.
Ireland's €12bn tax hole in 2009, by taxation type
Yesterday, the latest daft.ie report was released. More details here, but the overall gist is that asking prices fell 4.2% in the first few months of the year. Coupled with the falls in 2007 and 2008, this means that asking prices are now down 18% in two years. On the face of it, this may [...]
