Madam, - Three questions for Budget week:
1. Why should someone earning €50,000 pay tax at 42 per cent on incremental income while an earner of €250,000 might pay only 20 per cent on all income and personal capital gains?
2. Why give investment tax breaks directly to individuals when companies are the natural vehicles for making investments?
3. Why tinker with tax credits for PAYE workers when those with the highest earnings, and therefore the greatest capacity to pay tax, can avail of massive allowances to escape taxes?
The logical answer is to reduce the current top rate and apply it without exception. A new top rate of, say, 35 per cent on income and personal capital gains could give the same return to the Exchequer as the present inequitable regime.
If people wish to make investments, let them make them through companies where they can avail of allowances and a tax rate of 12.5 per cent. Done this way, all distributions and gains from companies could then be taxed in the normal way, without further relief, at a reduced top rate.
Surely the top tax rate should apply equally to all taxpayers. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN, Ardmeen Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - This week journalists will labour long and hard telling us how generous our political masters and mistresses are in giving us back our own money. We ordinary people, who elect these politicians, should never forget that it is our money that they are talking about. We should also never forget it is our money that is paying their spin doctors. In addition we should never forget that it is not our interests that they are serving but their own addiction to power.
This situation, while regrettable, is not surprising since most of our journalism is practised by what could be called "official journalists". One only has to listen to radio, watch TV or read the newspapers on any day of the week to conclude that Irish journalism is predominantly peopled by large numbers of forelock-tuggers who grovel, curry favour and kowtow to those in powerful positions.
All of us should, therefore, be wary of the political spin-doctoring that will colour press coverage of the Budget in the coming week. - Yours, etc,
A. LEAVY, Shielmartin Drive, Dublin 13.
Madam, - Given that Bertie Ahern was able to avail of the generosity of friends when he was hard up, would he and his Government now consider living up to the commitments he made on foreign aid at the UN in 2003, particularly in view of the unexpected increase in tax receipts? - Yours, etc,
KEN MULPETER, Loughnagin Heights, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.
A chara, - May I make a plea for a group who do not seem to have much clout? More than six years ago the weekly allowance for asylum-seekers was fixed at €19.10 for an adult and €9.60 for those under 18. Those allowances have remained unchanged ever since. To me that seems very unjust and miserly. Last year the Irish Refugee Council said that these allowances should be - €49 and €24 respectively.
I have written several times to Government Ministers and politicians about these allowances. These are the people who fixed and approved them. These people have also received many wage increases in the past six years - whether they needed them or not. - Is mise,
SEÁN Ó RIAIN, Gairdíní Bhaile na Lobhar, An Charraig Dhubh, Co Átha Cliath.
Madam, - Two recent news items caught my attention.
One concerned a facility for blind children which was being forced to curtail its services because of lack of funding. The other revealed that the Exchequer was in surplus to the extent of some €4 billion.
Surely something is radically wrong. - Yours, etc,
M.D. KENNEDY, Mount Saint Anne's, Milltown, Dublin 6.