Sir, – Today’s announcement of a property charge of €100 per household is a sickening blow to the people who were saddled with debt to fund a home for their children. The market was driven by greed and supported by governments and oppositions over the last 20 years. The “penalty” of €10 for every month the charge goes unpaid is extortionate as it adds up to 120 per cent per year. This is not government, this is robbery. I urge a boycott. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – It is a joke that a council house tenant in gainful employment will be exempt from paying the new water charge, and that a welfare recipient who is being strangled by an oversized mortgage will be expected to pay. – Is mise,
Madam, – At least the new household charge won’t be used to pay for Ivor Callely’s expenses. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Given how many election promises are being ripped up to pay for the bank bailout, I propose a tax on political U-turns.
It would surely raise lots of money, and have the added advantage of bringing TDs’ salaries down to the minimum wage in about a week. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Minister for Environment Phil Hogan’s new property tax, however inevitable, is premature.
The new tax might be more acceptable to overburdened taxpayers if it were preceded by a root-and-branch reform of the local authority system, delivering value for money instead of simply throwing taxes at an inefficient and wasteful bureaucracy. We have too many local authorities and a consequent duplication of management structures for everything from transport to fire-fighting. The Minister should start with some basics, such as why Leitrim needs to be managed in the same way as somewhere with a multiple of Leitrim’s size and population, such as Donegal.
The waste of the thousands of euro spent each year on having an anti-bullying consultant sit in on meetings of Sligo Borough Council could be eliminated, along with that unnecessary body itself. Let Sligo County Council look after the running of the town along with the county; it would give them something to do. Most of us could recount plenty of similar examples.
It is very easy to avoid hard decisions by simply taxing and retaxing the same people who pay for everything. Why not, for once, put the horse before the cart and reform the whole sorry mess. After that, if extra money is still needed, I’ll happily pay my share. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Those who are comparing the Fine Gael/Labour “property tax” to Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax are incorrect.
While Thatcher’s tax did indeed see distribution of wealth upwards, and was therefore inherently unjust, it did, however, reduce the amount to be levied on the unemployed and those on state pensions to 20 per cent.
We are in the hands of politicians whose sense of fairness and justice places them further to the right of Margaret Thatcher. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I am perfectly happy to pay more taxes and fully understand the need to do so. Our Government is spending more than it takes in, so expenditure must be decreased and taxes increased to bridge the gap. It really is that simple.
The Government, however, needs to reread the fundamental principles of taxation, one of which is that taxes should be progressive. Simply put, this means that the more you have, the more you should pay.
Fixing the new household charge at €100 for everyone affected is regressive because it takes proportionally more from the less well-off. This is unfair and a recipe for discontent.
Why should a retired bus driver on a small fixed pension pay the same as a senior civil servant? At a minimum, those above the average income should pay €150, and those below it €50. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Where stands the Labour Party in Fine Gael’s neo-Thatcherite proposal to hit all households with a flat-rate “service” charge? As the scheme stands, a millionaire on Ailesbury Road will pay the exact same amount as a person living in a flat in Drumcondra.
The proposal is as despicable as it is unfair, a needless throwback to Thatcher’s “poll tax” of the 1990s.
Can this really be Eamon Gilmore’s tribute to James Connolly as we near the centenary of 1916? Shame on him, and his party. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – With the new property charge, I am again being asked to do my duty. Every day, we are told we must find our way out of this financial mess; and every day, the collective memory fades a little more about those who got us into that mess (to their delight, I am sure). I will pay my dues, but only when I see the perpetrators pay theirs: criminally, financially or with utter social contempt. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Forced to emigrate due to job losses, unable to sell due to massive negative equity and unable to pay our mortgage as rental incomes have tanked, our “home” has no value to us.
Indeed, the value is negative, meaning that the Government should be paying us a household charge. – Yours, etc,