The budget drumbeat is getting louder all the time. First up was the Summer Economic Statement and now we have the Tax Strategy Group papers where Department of Finance officials examine various scenarios for Minister for Finance Jack Chambers as he starts work on framing his maiden budget.
One of the clear messages this year is that Revenue suspects people might be having lapses when it comes to recalling previous inheritances or large gifts when it comes to assessing liability for inheritance tax. The answer: get people to report every inheritance and big gift as it happens and let Revenue do the “remembering” for them. Whether that happens remains to be seen, not least as Fine Gael in particular is trying to persuade an electorate – many of whom will never trouble the inheritance tax thresholds – that the rules should be loosened, not tightened.
Climate change is another hardy annual these days come budget time and officials were weighing the respective merits of a car parking levy on those commuting to work and a congestion charge. The officials have plumped for the latter; whether the Government sees things the same way remains to be seen.
What does seem increasingly certain is that the hospitality sector in general, and restaurateurs in particular can expect little support for their latest campaign for a return to a 9 per cent VAT rate, at least if those officials compiling the Tax Strategy Group papers have their way.
Other areas including just how progressive our taxation of labour should be, the odds of getting more money out of bookies and the sense of ignoring evidence about the limited wider benefits of incentives for home purchase also featured. Eoin Burke-Kennedy, Cormac McQuinn and Barry O’Halloran pored over the documents.
Separately, Martin Wall gets access to the briefing papers put together for Jack Chambers as he took up his role as Minister for Finance. At a hefty 300 pages, they cover a lot of ground, but financing house building and the outlook for corporation tax and wider industrial policy featured centrally.
Aer Lingus pilots overwhelmingly accepted the Labour Court-brokered 17.75 per cent pay deal over three and a half years, offering the airline some respite just as results from Ryanair on Monday showed the sector is heading for some turbulence. Barry O’Halloran assesses the breaking peace and whether it is carefully enough framed to forestall the airline’s other unions from trying to come back to the negotiating table for further increases.
Elsewhere, Eoin Burke-Kennedy reports on the dramatic growth in energy consumption by Ireland’s data centre industry, which now accounts for more than a fifth of all power consumed in the State, a number that is only likely to further escalate tensions over whether the State is going too far to accommodate the industry even as it tries to wean itself of fossil fuel-powered energy.
Profits at Michelin starred Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud tanked last year as operating costs surged, with Mr Guilbaud admitting frankly to Gordon Deegan that he felt he could not pass the increases without running the risk of losing customers.
Those concerns are unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing among farmers as Teagasc’s annual national farm survey shows their income plummeted last year from what had been, in some sectors anyway, record highs in 2022. Increasing costs and falling prices were a perfect storm for the sector where average income was under €20,000, the IFA noted.
Someone with no such concerns is Cathal Friel, the serial entrepreneur who has brought more companies to market than anyone else since explorer extraordinaire John Teeling. In the company’s words, chairman Friel sold all his remaining shares in clinical trials group Hvivo to meet investor demand following a recent capital markets day.
Away from high finance Joanne Hunt examines the financial conundrums that typically confront younger readers. This week she looks at couples’ compatibility, specifically their financial compatibility and why it is so important for the long-term success in relationships. The lesson: it’s never too early to talk money and the more open we can be on the subject, the less potential for nasty surprises down the line.
Finally, John McManus looks back at the global outage last week as a result of Crowdstrike’s gltichy patch and wonders first how lucky we have been not to experience more such issues given our growing depending on digital infrastructure but also how much more dangerous such a problem could be in the era of AI.
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