The limits of the possible…Child Benefit July 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.9 comments
Interesting to read in the Irish Times that plans to tax or means-test child benefit have been all but shelved.
The reasons?
Officials say there are significant problems in, for example, seeking to tax cohabiting couples with children. While the Revenue Commissioners have a database of married couples to use for assessing tax, it has no such data on cohabiting couples.
“There is no way of accurately getting this information so as to ensure all cohabiting couples pay tax on their child benefit,” records state.
Similarly, in the case of divorce or separation, officials state it would be difficult to determine who would be liable to pay tax on child benefit.
If tax on child benefit was not applied equally, officials warn that there could be constitutional difficulties if married people were treated worse than cohabiting couples.
And…
Even if an equitable way to tax child benefit was identified, department officials say it would be problematic to ensure people would be treated fairly. If the benefit was taxed, it would likely be based on a person’s income for the previous year. Such a system would not take account of current-year income.
“If a person was unemployed in the year after assessment it may not be fair to reduce their child benefit,” according to department records.
One wonders though whether it would be possible to have a supplement through welfare when one signed on thereby defraying the hit on those who were made unemployed and given CB on the basis of their previous years income? Granted that would ‘split’ the provision of CB, at least in that circumstance. And I’m sure there are other workarounds.
Anyway that’s probably moot, taxation is out… at least according to them. What then of means testing?
The Government would face a similar set of administrative and policy difficulties if it opted to means-test child benefit instead of taxing it, according to officials.
The dilemma of whether to measure net or gross income is one obstacle raised. While gross income is simpler and more transparent, officials say net income would provide “a more accurate indicator how well-off a household is in practice”.
Any system of means-testing would need to be responsive to changes in circumstances, such as reductions in income, unemployment, or changes in the household arising from separation or divorce.
In addition, an audit and control system would need to be put in place. This would have to limit the possibility of under-declaration of income and prevent fraud.
And…
Another obstacle with means-testing is the cost of administrative and information technology. Such a system would involve significant costs and require “significant changes to IT systems . . . to deal with the processing of changes in income and possible under or overpayment of child benefit”.
Hmmmm…
Documents also note the dilemma of who to means-test and the lack of data for the overall household income for cohabiting couples. “The concept of the taxable unit is different to the concept of the household used in the social welfare system,” documents state.
Which last point is interesting because clearly there is a means of differentiating (whether one likes it or not) between ‘households’ and ‘taxable units’ in the two different systems – leading me back to my point about taxation.
As it happens, and this is probably no surprise, my own chosen approach would be one of universal provision of benefit taxed according to income, but I worry about stories like this, because it seems to me that a third and much less attractive option presents itself on the political horizon, the gradual removal of child benefit (perhaps in a way and across timescales similar to those we see with mortgage interest relief) and the ultimate provision of it through social welfare – or alternatively the granting of a tax relief equal to CB which ultimately will be whittled down.
Interestingly enough if we look back at a suggestion from Colm McCarthy this time last year in the Irish Times we see that latter course presented in outline…
He also suggested that, instead of taxing or means-test child benefit, the best approach might be to cut the basic rate from €166 per child per month to €136. Social welfare payments could be reduced by 5 per cent because of the decline in the inflation rate and still retain the same value as in Summer 2008.
Given that CB was cut by €16 per month at the last budget bringing it to €150 plenty of scope there for McCarthy’s proposal to come into effect. That such a flat measure impacts on all but not equally appears not to trouble him at all.
But more broadly, perhaps this points to constraints of both a practical and a political nature in altering tranches of social policy and expenditure. More on that thought soon.
Well I never… Moody’s have spoken… July 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.8 comments
It’s funny, and not ha-ha, reading this piece in the Irish Times yesterday. For the Gods of the bond market have spoken, and all is not well. Yea, verily, after two years of prodigious feats of expenditure cutting Ireland Inc. [as they would see it] has yet to cut the mustard.
Moody’s has downgraded Ireland’s credit rating. We’re Aa2!
COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND: STATEMENT: – BANK OF IRELAND JOB LOSES. July 20, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.add a comment
COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND
16th July
STATEMENT: – BANK OF IRELAND JOB LOSES.
The announcement today by Bank of Ireland that it would be cutting its workforce by 750 jobs to be imposed over the next two years is clearly just the beginning. These job losses come on the back of thousands of jobs already gone from the financial services sector and at a time when Ireland is recording record levels of unemployment – even though the experts tell us we are out of the recession!
What is clearly missing from the mainstream media and establishment debate is an historical economic perspective that questions the role played by finance in the economic system, capitalism, today. The same so-called economic experts (that usually work for financial institutions) that informed public opinion prior to the collapse are brought out to propose solutions. Rarely, with a few notable exceptions, do they ask serious questions about the fundamentals that drive the economic system.
This critically necessary debate is being ignored or silenced by a compliant media, a media largely owned by the same people that profit off the current system.
Capitalism is a cyclical boom bust system. The days of competitive capitalism are long over. Today a number of trans-national monopolies operate, invest and create profits across sectors. This has a profound impact upon the accumulation process and has led to the spectre of over-production and over-accumulation haunting the capitalist system.
The productive real economy has been in deep stagnation for some time. Profits globally from manufacturing and non-finance related activities have been on the decline since the 1960’s. Despite the increase in military manufacturing and spending this deep rooted stagnation (due to the capacity of the system to over-produce and its failure to increase market demand) exists and will continue to exist subject to no technological innovations on the scale of the railways or automobile transforming society.
It is in this context that the system turned to finance to become the primary source of investment, capital creation and expenditure for working people and the basis of necessary growth in capitalism. Important to note is that this was not a conspiratorial coup by a number of bankers, nor was it an opted policy choice by Governments. It was the only manner by which the system could avoid its dreaded and unavoidable problem of stagnation.
It is hard to pin down an exact date but safe to say that for the last 20 years debt and speculative finance, with consequential bubbles in various sectors, have been the primary avenue for existing capital to be invested and the primary avenue of profit creation for the system. Wages have dramatically declined with working people being increasingly reliant upon debt to survive or enhance their quality of life. This process, known often as the financialisation of the economy, is key to understanding the action of the Irish Government and the EU.
The function of the so-called bailouts is not the saving of personal friends of Fianna Fail or politicians and shouldn’t been seen in this light as it far more systemic than this. For capitalism to function, to exist, there must be a profitable avenue for accumulated capital to invest in. Finance, financial instruments and debt, are that avenue. The bailout is a required attempt at stabilising the system to enable the accumulation process to continue. To enable capitalism survive.
It is an absolute necessity if ones starting point and primary desire is the maintenance of capitalism regardless of its human or environmental cost.
However, if you are more concerned with jobs, families, quality of life, democracy, justice and equality then there is an alternative route to take. It is not reform of the system because no reform can abolish the fundamental necessity of capital to recreate and accumulate and consequently its need for debt and financial instruments as this avenue. Not reform but transformative.
By transformative we mean economic and social demands that challenge politically the economic system. That challenge the owners of capital and the control they possess over people and society. That mobilise working people to view an economic system as only a means by which society produces and distributes for all and judge the success of a system on this basis.
We believe such an economic system can be built from the struggle of working people for dignity and respect under the current system. No blue print can be provided but the struggle against the massive redistribution of wealth from working people to capital is the starting point.
We propose as some demands for working people:
• The creation of a State Development Bank;
• Planned investment to meet the needs of working people;
• Control over our islands natural resources;
• Utilisation of wind and wave energy supplies; and
• The development of an all-Ireland economy utilising local resources and talents.
A more detailed development of this strategy can be found in the economic pamphlet “An economy for the common good.” published by the Communist Party of Ireland.
Uh-oh… Eamon Gilmore has spoken about property taxes… July 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.25 comments
…Not sure that his words are an indication of great strides about to be made by the Labour Party in the future. For he has opined that…
People who are struggling to pay their mortgage cannot be asked to pay a property tax on top of that…
“It would be perverse to ask people to pay a property tax on a property on which they are paying a mortgage and the size of the mortgage is now in many cases more than what the value of what the property is worth,” he added.
Yes. And no. People who are paying rent have had to take wage cuts, people who are unemployed are facing increased consumption taxes [if Dan O'Brien is to be believed]. He’ll have to come up with something better than that. He continues…
….he opposed the idea as many people had already paid a property tax in the form of stamp duty.
The obsession with stamp duties verges dangerously close to the concerns of the Sunday Independent. Yet it’s a curious argument which allows previous payment of stamp duty to trump any future tax.
But there’s ways and means. A property tax could be introduced gradually, with the necessary safeguards to ensure that those unable to pay were protected. Or better still we could hear about a general property tax rather than one limited to houses. But so far nothing.
The Commission on Taxation Report, released last year, a report that in and of itself was fundamentally and explicitly driven by an adherence to the ‘low-tax model’, called for a property tax.
The crying need to broaden the tax base in order to shift away from an over-dependence on a narrow range of taxes is one would have hoped near inarguable at this point. And yet everything seems to indicate that rather than dealing with this issue there’s a populist shift away from it on the part of many parties.
And the principle, that property taxes should be introduced, is something that one would have hoped the social democratic standard bearer could stand behind. That it doesn’t is problematic.
Addendum:
The more I think about it the more it seems that the stamp duty reference was carefully calibrated. And you know what? I think for better or for worse, for worse, it will work in this appeal to middle Ireland. And yet I also think back to the bonfire of the taxes indulged in by almost all parties [Labour too with the absurd idea of yet further cuts in income tax despite the very evident overheating of the economy in the run up to 2007] prior to the last election and I wonder at the credibility of these sorts of statements.
Left Archive: Marxist Review, Theoretical Journal of the Revolutionary Marxist Group, No.3, Spring 1973 July 19, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Left Online Document Archive, Revolutionary Marxist Group.20 comments
This document, very kindly donated to the Archive by Mark P and the Socialist Party, is of particular interest. We’ve already considered some material from the Revolutionary Marxist Group, but this expands upon their analysis and during a period of particular change on the further left on the island.
Just to briefly refresh memories, the Revolutionary Marxist Group was, as previously noted:
…an intriguing Trotskyist formation on the Irish left from the 1970s. Never very large it consisted of former members the League for a Workers Republic and Young Socialists.
The contents of this particular document is broad ranging, with essays on ‘The Leninist theory of Party Organisation’ by James Conway, ‘Connolly and the Revolutionary Party’ by D.R O’Connor Lysaght, ‘Class Consciousness and the Leninist Party’ by Ernest Mandel and ‘Once More – Trotsky on Ireland’ by James Conway.
Each is of specific interest in providing a sense of the discussions within the RMG and it’s position as regard other formations. The first engages with the issue of discipline, democracy, factions and so on within the context of the Leninist model of party organisation.
The second considers issues of Connolly and the revolutionary party in conjunction with a critique of the analyses of the British and Irish Communist Organisation.
The third is a reprint of an Ernest Mandel speech while the fourth also engages in part with BICO and the ICO.
Apologies for the quality of the scans. The original was printed in red ink and is very faint in parts.
Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week July 18, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in media.66 comments
LAST Wednesday, July 14, was the anniversary of Bastille Day, the day on which in 1789 the French revolution began.
Forget liberty, equality and fraternity. The revolution turned out to be horrifying and grotesque, plunging Europe into dictatorship, genocide and instability and inspiring evil monsters like Stalin, Hitler and Mao.
Joseph Goebbels, 1933: “The year 1789 is being expunged from history”.
Brian Hayes interviewed in the Irish Sunday Mail… July 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.5 comments
Brian Hayes still has doubts, according to an interview with Jason O’Toole in the Irish Sunday Mail today. Doubts? Doubts about this…
He will also add fuel to the flame by revealing that there are still doubts about Enda Kenny’s leadership. ‘The jury is out – he’s got to prove himself,’ he says in this exclusive interview.
And there’s nothing like expressing ‘doubts’ in the pages of an Irish newspaper. Doubts imply uncertainty. A potential for decisions to go either way.
But these don’t sound like doubts so much as certainties. Certainties that one man isn’t that suited for the leadership of FG. That man being the man who is… leader of FG.
This I like… July 18, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.add a comment
…On foot of this article in Slate check this out, and while that’s a joke, contemplate that this isn’t, as noted by Garibaldy yesterday.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… Sunn O))) July 17, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to..., Uncategorized.22 comments
It’s sunny this morning. At least it is where I am. Sun splitting the sky, time to kick back, have a beer and chill out. The Orb perhaps, or something party like, well we had Asian Dub Foundation a few months back… so perhaps them, or the Fleshtones… or…
Let’s put on something relaxing from… er… a band which provides a form of experimental drone doom metal which is… no… wait… come back… seriously..!
This is worth listening to. Sunn O)) – name taken from a brand of amplifier, started out as a fairly standard, albeit more intense, US based doom metal band, but they’ve subsequently evolved into something quite fascinating, something that sits in a genuinely experimental place.
So, sure, there are downtuned guitars and echoes of Sabbath riffery – actually not just echoes but whole stadia of them brought in more or less as is. There are doom metal vocals deeper than deep, (apparently Lee Dorrian of Cathedral has worked with some of the members in the past – which figures) but something beyond that. You suddenly hear horns, strings… and I mean, really, how many doom metal bands have tributes to Alice Coltrane as part of their oeuvre? Not many I think is the answer.
How many largely eschew drums or indeed beats of any sort, except as additional background noise, to compete with the feedback as it were?
And how many rope in classical instruments to produce something entirely unlike the usual nonsense when rock tries to go ‘serious’ and all middle brow on us (I’m thinking of you Metallica, and yes you early offender Deep Purple…). Who use classical instruments and choirs in order to produce yet further experimental music that is difficult, more melodic than one might expect, and hugely compelling. Naturally how seriously one takes it is entirely up to the individual… 
Enjoy…
Big Church [Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért]
Alice
Agharta
Hunting & Gathering (Cydonia)
Ruan O’Donnell – ‘Operation Harvest 1956-62: Glorious Failure?’ July 17, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish History, Irish Politics, Republicanism, The Left, Uncategorized.12 comments
Gort na Móna CLG & Glór na Móna present
Community Lectures Series 2010
July – Friday 23rd, 7.30pm
Ruan O’Donnell – ‘Operation Harvest 1956-62: Glorious Failure?’
Ruan O’Donnell is the Head of History in Limerick University. He is a well-known Irish writer and academic, and the official historian of the Robert Emmet Association. He has written several books on Irish republican history. Among his many works are Robert Emmett; O’Brien Pocket History of the Irish Famine; Ballads and Poems of the Wicklow Rebellion, 1798; and Marked for Botany Bay: The Wicklow United Irishmen and the development of political transportation from Ireland, 1791-1806.
The talk will take place in Gort na Móna CLG, Springfield Road, Belfast.
Many thanks to the person who forwarded this.
