Ireland's VAT hits an eye-watering 23%
- 7 December 2011 09:24141312We think we have it bad here, yesterday it was announced that Ireland's Vat would rise to 23%. This is a wallet pinching gut wrenching rise. I just dont know how a Eurozone economy can sustain such high levels of taxation and still recover enough to see some growth. Thats almost a quarter of the cost EXTRA.. on every single thing you purchase in the High Street, every single restaurant you go to..and so on. Buy something for £100 and its now £123.
Surely this will cause stagnation..people will baulk at those figures. Who will go to a restaurant? who will shop in the High St for anything other than basics? I dunno. It seems the economics of the mad house.
Well all the Eurozone countries are tightening things to eliminate debt, Ireland are spending 16billions more than the take in with taxes, so you can see the need to tighten things to satisfy Merkel and Sarkozy etc.
But at the same time they complain that they need growth. I think the Ed Balls idea of cutting VAT makes more sense to me. The treasury loses initially but gains when people get enough confidence back to start spending again in the High St. This is turn creates demand, thereby creating jobs.
I hope this doesnt give George Osborne any ideas here...23% - No Thanks!email: dover7@msn.com - 7 December 2011 09:45141315The Irish VAT rate is the same rate as the Greeks, the difference is that the Irish will pay it!!
I will go along with you in one sense PaulB - higher taxes are not the answer, they are more the problem. The answer is to cut government spending.
Taxes in the UK should certainly be cut to help the economy but not VAT. Better to cut corporation taxes and income taxes, particularly the higher rates and that will increase the levels of revenue the government gets.
I have to say that taking advice from Ed Balls on the economy is like taking advice from HSBC on where the very elderly and terminally ill should invest....
- 7 December 2011 13:30141333not only v.a.t in ireland, wages have fallen 14% property values by about half and there a raft of taxes hitting the consumer.
here we see the irish finance minister explaining the latest austerity measures to the public.
- Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
7 December 2011 15:30141338And we complain about our measures, we should count our blessings we are not in Ireland or or some other EU countries and stop moaning.-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
------------------------------------------------------------------- - 7 December 2011 16:53141357Yes indeed things are fairly bad over there but they are tackling the difficulties with resolve. I think it was the guy in Howards picture above there that I saw on TV saying that things are in place for recovery now, but they are needing a return to steadyness in the Eurozone, the minister was saying they are a nation of exporters and now they need someone buoyant to export to...email: dover7@msn.com
- Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
7 December 2011 17:08141368China?
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
------------------------------------------------------------------- - 7 December 2011 17:12141371lol!!
Jan..ah but no..China does the exporting bigtime.. and no one can match their price so you couldnt sell anything to them that they already make cheaper, although I saw an item on TV last week that said they the Chinese import toasters from here in the UK because somehow they havent got the hang of making them...so there you are, there's hope for us yet. 
email: dover7@msn.com
