New savings scheme will involve tax cuts for the rich paid for by rest of the population


SpottedAlpaca

25 comments
  1. Pure nonsense in this article, other ways of growing savings like this new scheme have to be introduced. Property can’t be the only way we invest in this country

  2. The base logic of this article makes no sense. 1) These savings are earning near zero interest currently, moving them to something more productive is a gain for society and the economy, not a loss. They werent earning tax to begin with, now they will 2) The group he’s talking about pay the majority of taxes, they aren’t being subsidized by everyone else.

  3. > Figures from the Central Bank of Ireland show that Irish people hold most of their wealth in housing, and it is only the richest slice of the population who hold significant financial assets.

    Why wont anyone think of the poor homeowners?

    I’m 27 and can’t see myself owning a home anytime soon. These tax cuts benefit people who might be able to put away a few bob but not enough to afford a house.
    It’s circular logic anyway. The reason the less well off don’t hold assets is because the tax regime is so off putting.

    Seriously the Irish times is worse than the worst Reddit shitposters at times.

  4. Odd terminology when already, fractional reserve banking exists. If everyone went to withdraw their money, whether current or savings accounts, its not there ready to draw

  5. Very poor article. So he’s saying it’s “tax cuts for the rich” paid for by the poor? What percentage of the tax take is paid by “the poor” John? He’s right about lack of competition in banking but that’s has nothing to do with this scheme which is designed to get people to invest, not save (which is why the name of it shouldn’t be savings scheme but let’s leave that aside for now).

  6. This is literally just part of a misinformation campaign.

  7. This shite is why normal people can’t have anything nice, there is a very significant portion of the population who are neither rich nor poor and would like to see something for their taxes. It allows them to plan for their future, it will have an economic benefit for the country. Investing is not just for rich people.

  8. What a BS article. I got €1500 in my savings account RN. I got an interest last week of a mind boggling….. €0.47 from it.

    I will take whatever effin scheme there is to get more than that out of my money. Banks are taking a piss

  9. I hate when opinion is presented as fact in newspaper headlines.

    The facts are that those people who benefit from this scheme, are the very people who current pay most of the income taxes, and get fuck all back from it.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/05/28/top-77-of-earners-now-paying-more-than-half-all-income-tax-and-usc-report-finds/

    >It highlighted that the top 7.7 per cent of tax units (those earning more than €100,000) accounted for 54.1 per cent of income tax and universal social charge (USC) payments in 2021.

  10. Headlines like this are so annoying, the article isn’t much better 

    This is written from a place of such bias. By that, I don’t mean the writer has a bias towards banks and deposits, but he simply cannot see beyond his own generation and can’t conceive that any proposed new system might have any relevance to anyone outside of the 20% of the population (his age group) that hold 80% of deposits 

    The fact a 25 year old or 35 year old might want something easy and accessible for €20 or €50 or €100 they might have to spare each month seems beyond his comprehension 

  11. Hmm…wouldn’t the rich have better options already? I doubt this is aimed at them, more for people who have the money on their old fashioned bank account ……

  12. An awful lot of journalists and politicians in this country seem to think if you’re not on some sort of welfare you’re automatically classed as rich.

  13. Something to encourage putting savings to use, and to help people saving for a house deposit, will be a good thing. But its worth bearing in mind the average adult in Ireland has only €6,300 of savings. 53% have less than €3000, and 25% less than €500.

    Savings (or investments) levels are very small for the vast majority of the population.

    So the article is right – unless limits are set quite low (say €20k total) then its absolutely going to be a tax break for the richest 1%.

  14. Holy ragebait

    Firstly – the author rightly points out that ordinary people who can afford to invest tend to tie it uo in property, and then never addresses this point again. We need to take pensions out of housing, definancialise it (at least for “small landlords”), and provide a tax efficient alternative for ordinary people when they get to that point in life – where better to invest it than into the domestic productive economy?

    Second – the truly wealthy already have tax efficient vehicles

    Third – a large cohort of those he describes as wealthy due to large cash deposits are just old people who havent anything to do woth their money and dont want to tie it up in an asset like a house vecause they want to remain liquid

    Fourth – there is a host of people in their 30s-50s who want to invest their deposits rather than let them sit in stale, low return bank accounts (frankly a negative return factoring inflation), and who would rather not invest in the vampire asset of property. Let them do it without penalising them! See point 1.

    Fifth – his alternative solution provides NOTHING to the ordinary person, nothing to anyone except the ultra ultra wealthy who would control and invest in these mega trans-european capital funds

    Hypercapitalism dressed up as concerned progressivism.

    And he’s a leading ESRI economist?

  15. So people who have a modest amount of savings to ensure they don’t get put out on the street in case they lose their job are now rich. Gimme a break.

  16. The amount of people in the comments who dont understand the scheme, is exactly how successive governments have managed to make the rich richer by getting people to vote against their own interests 

  17. I’ve seen numbers floated about like €20,000 per year into a tax-free scheme. Anyone who’s looking at putting this amount in after their pension contributions is someone I’m willing to call rich.

    Got a whole lot of people on six figures playing as if they’re the “ordinary middle class”, same as those on €50k.

  18. Well, as an Irish-American, all I can say is now can ALL be Irish-Americans!

    You won’t even have to sail over here in shit conditions!

  19. I think this sub is totally irrational about this proposal. Yes it will increase inequality. It is to primarily benefit people who own their own home and have savings left over after paying into their pension. That is the wealthy portion of this population.

    However, I support that if it encourages people to invest rather than get a second mortgage and compete with first time buyers. I think we can argue about the different ways to do that, there are different models, but this is what the proposal does.

  20. Well they’re kinda correct if the tax free limits are set too high. It would be brilliant for middle income families to save maybe €20k per year tax free like in the UK, but it looks like this system will also let the very rich park millions outside the tax net. 

    This difference will have to be made up by the PAYE worker. 

  21. as someone saving for a home currently, interest rates on savings basically loose money with inflation so it seems at least somewhat reasonable to suggest creating some form of investment scheme for people that doesn’t involve housing, which everyone in this country who has money invests in as there’s nothing else that grows in value while also paying for itself.

    Say you have €10k in savings, currently BOI offer 1% interest on savings thats €100 gross return a year, then the government comes along and takes €33 in taxes, so I’d get €66 from the bank, while to loan 10k from the bank for a year they want 8.3% (bank of ireland calculator right now) so they would earn €441 gross from the same 10k, and with fractional reserve banking they can loan the same 10k I gave them 10 times simultaneously so theoretically that could make 10x their 8.3%

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