mailo:lucindaPodcastCover Tunein

From top: Renua candidate Mailo Power with party leader Lucinda Creighton; William Campbell

Waterford Renua candidate and hotel owner Mailo Power talks to William Campbell of the Here’s How [current affairs] podcast on her party’s controversial flat tax plan.

William writes:

Mailo Power defends her party’s plans for taxation. People on six-figure salaries will get huge tax cuts, someone on €200k get an extra €45k in their pocket. People lower down the scale? They get an incentive to work harder…

Fight!

Listen here

Sponsored Link

42 thoughts on “Rich Tea

  1. Owen C

    The idea of flat taxes is not completely without merit. But the Renua flat tax proposal is bonkers. Its simply too low to be fiscally or politically coherent. How did they think that marginal rates of 52%/effective rates of 40-45% for higher earners was going to be simply replaced at 23%, with no fiscal cost? It’s incredible. It requires some pretty hardcore imagination to come up with a multiplier effect that would create that much extra consumption. Having a flat tax, in order to give a more simplified tax system, but with effective rates broadly similar to existing levels for the vast majority of people, would have been a far smarter and more coherent policy. All they needed to do was create a tax credit of 10k and a flat tax of 40% and they would have gotten most of the way there. In the longer term they could tinker them down lower if the bump to consumption actually arrived, but they decided to go full retard (never go full retard) with a monster tax cut for the super rich at 23% on day 1. As i said, bonkers economically and politically.

    1. Clampers Outside!

      Oh no, it’s not bonkers according to this fool – https://twitter.com/JPAnnascaul

      After all, someone who works “hard” at a labour intensive job is not worth the same as a suit who works hard even though his very argument is that “a lot of the top earners work a lot harder” and deserve the loads o’ money windfall.

      Beggars belief in this day and age

  2. DubLoony

    Can’t believe they are sticking with this idea. What is their position on public services like, oh, say ambulances, gardai, schools that the other stuff that makes a society tick over?

    Top earners work harder, really? Footballers, pop stars ear more but I reckon A&E staff work much harder.
    Clowns.

    1. donal

      I really hate this notion that how hard you work determines how much you are paid.
      A cleaner in a hotel may work with evey ounce of their fibre for 10 hours a day.
      A stockbroker may work with every ounce of their fibre for 10 hours a day.
      Neither is working harder. The value of the output from the stockbroker may be greater and they may be renumeraed accordingly, but it is not the amount of effort expended that counts.
      Of course in all likelihood the stockbroker has a higher level of education and this has assisted the gaining of their job, but the important difference thus is education level not working hard.
      Working hard in a minimum wage job dose not pay well, and it never will. But it is a huge disrespect to those who work hard at minimum wage jobs to suggest that if they just worked harder they’d be better off.

      1. ahjayzis

        Ditto.

        Show me the banker who works harder than a nurse.

        Show me the footballer who works harder than the bin-man.

      2. MoyestWithExcitement

        I think a lot of people posting on BS are proof that you don’t necessarily have to work *that* hard to earn a living. You think cleaners get a chance to post here several times a day?

      3. Anne

        “I really hate this notion that how hard you work determines how much you are paid.”

        Yeah.
        You might like this –
        http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

        “One is the necessity of keeping the poor contented, which has led the rich, for thousands of years, to preach the dignity of labor, while taking care themselves to remain undignified in this respect.”

    2. ahjayzis

      I’d imagine they’d want things like schools and ambulances to be run on a subscription basis so we’re all as ‘free’ as possible. Free to, like, die of poverty without the state interfering, spending other peoples money on you.

      “999, what’s your emergency?”

      “I’m having a heart attack!”

      “Okay, I’ll just need your account number – would you be interested in any of our Basic Societal Decency Bundles? There’s a 23% discount”

      1. scottser

        :)
        ‘now if you’ll just type in your eircode we’ll have an ambulance out to you as soon as possible..’

  3. JD

    There isn’t a huge market for that agenda in Ireland as they are manifesting that. It is too far right wing but there is a market to challenge some elements of the leftist nature of some of our institutions. There is little or no accountability in the public sector and increments will keep on rolling with no fireability even in the face of egregious performance. In terms of the vulnerable, there are loads of people out there who need support or more support but there are still plenty of people who take the mick and play the system. The system is too tolerant of that and its other needy people who lose out. It is hard to see any politicians out there who encourage raising the bar in any way…As Olivia O’Leary put it, there they go again buying us with our own money!!!

  4. Jake38

    Sounds fantastic. I’d take the massive tax cut for about 24 months and then scarper as the country collapsed.

      1. ahjayzis

        You could commute from Northern Ireland I suppose.

        Social services commensurate with an enlightened taxation/redistribution system, tax on your wages the stuff of a Louisiana Republicans wet dream.

  5. some old queen

    There is an old saying… Those who care don’t get paid and those who get paid don’t care. Renua cleary don’t give a sh|t. They are so off the wall you would wonder if they are just a stooge to make FG look like moderates.

  6. Frenchfarmer

    The Countries and States that have tried this have found that it not only helps the poor really quickly, which helps small businesses, but many tax exiles return because it is cheaper than all the accountants, advisers and costs of avoiding tax and is better for their business as they can openly prove their worth and stability.
    All in all it makes life simpler for everyone.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie