Letters

Taxation policy and the ‘golden goose’

Political options and choices

Mon Sept 12 2022 - 00:12

Sir, – Pat O’Brien (Letters, September 9th) uses the analogy of the golden goose story to illustrate his doubts about the Sinn Féin wealth taxation proposal.

However, stating, in argument, that 40 per cent of the working population pays no tax is actually a sign of how little they are paid. If you can buy your own home and can afford to have children, then you may have benefitted from a golden goose.

If you cannot, as most young people cannot, then you are on a wild goose chase. You will vote accordingly. The real Irish golden goose, the young employees who keep the wealthy goose golden, would like their own nest. – Yours, etc,

EUGENE TANNAM,

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Firhouse,

Dublin 24.

Sir, – Pat O’Brien adds another policy option to the long list of options that shouldn’t be considered because it may frighten the multinational golden goose.

During Covid, the low-waged, who could not work from home, kept the country running.

Does your letter writer believe they should have their tax burden increased? Might that discourage people from working or are positive incentives to work a concept only relevant to the great and good?

Maybe the resultant risk of lack of basic services might also frighten those who must be obeyed. Maybe the low-waged could be taxed more and benefits decreased at the same time so they still have an incentive to work, given that equity doesn’t seem to be a concern.

Or is the answer to leave the tax base as is but to reduce the level of public services?

What type of society does Pat O’Brien want? – Yours, etc,

NEIL KELLY,

Castletroy,

Limerick.

Sir, – The proportion of taxation paid in our society is overly concentrated in just two segments: higher wage earners and multinational companies. The Department of Finance Annual Tax Report 2022 raises this fact as a highly significant risk in our taxation system, stating clearly that our economy is heavily dependent for tax revenue on a small base of higher-paid employees and multinational companies.

Sinn Féin and People Before Profit, if elected to government, intend to compound this problem and to narrow the tax base by imposing more employment taxes, income tax, wealth taxes, property taxes and inheritance taxes on these two highly mobile segments of society.

Notably, no media outlets have questioned either party on their taxation plans in light of this report which makes clear that the State is already vulnerably dependent on these two segments.

Meanwhile, the latest opinion polls indicate that the Irish electorate, caught up in a wave of populist victimhood and rage, will likely elect a leftist government at the next general election.

Should Sinn Féin and People Before Profit take power, probably supported by Labour and the Social Democrats, many higher earners will leave, multinationals will cut back investment, jobs will be lost and tax yield will suffer.

The British, lied to by nationalist elements of the British far-right, have caused long-term economic chaos with their Brexit vote. The French recently narrowly avoided electing the far-right Marine Le Pen and the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The Italians look almost certain to elect the political descendants of Mussolini to lead the most right-wing government in the history of the postwar Italian republic, seriously strengthening the nationalist and populist bloc in Europe, with Victor Orban entrenched in Hungary for the long term and a war being waged on the eastern front of Europe by a far-right kleptocrat in Russia.

Significant instability in the EU is almost a long-term certainty; an unravelling of the European Union cannot be ruled out.

We in Ireland, with a thriving economy, massive job creation, huge inward migration, the most progressive taxation and welfare system and the lowest poverty gap in the OECD, seem ready to elect a nationalist populist force of the far left to lead our Government and upend our successful high-growth economic model. – Yours, etc,

MARK MOHAN,

Castleknock,

Dublin 15.