Sir, – I’m sure the views expressed by Muriel A Mulcahy (April 22nd) on the dubious benefits of saving will have struck a chord with many readers.
My fine parents, operating on modest means, taught me the practice of thrift. In those days (I am in my 80s) they cut their coat according to their cloth. I wonder what my parents’ generation would have made of the sheer stupidity of 100 per cent mortgages?
Over the years my wife and I have tailored our expenditure to enable us to put a modest sum into savings. The interest on these savings (derived from after-tax income) is taxed and is considered to be part of one’s income for further taxation.
If the savings left to one’s children after death exceed a certain threshold (equivalent to a professional footballer’s weekly wage or a small fraction of a banker’s annual bonus), the State grabs one third.
So the intention to provide a modicum of comfort in old age and leave our children something to ease their burden in the difficult future they face is undermined by layers of taxation. It would appear that thrift is, as Muriel Mulcahy has suggested, a “mug’s game”.
An attack on savings coupled with the creeping erosion of benefits earned during one’s working life means that the so-called Golden Years have lost their sheen. Perhaps we should have taken that world cruise after all but, alas, too late now. – Yours, etc,
ROBERT BATES,
Delgany Park,
Delgany, Co Wicklow.