2 ms·

>In what sense did Ireland go bankrupt? Correct that the use of terminology is incorrect because no country can go bankrupt. But the point remains. >We massiv

>In what sense did Ireland go bankrupt? Correct that the use of terminology is incorrect because no country can go bankrupt. But the point remains. >We massively increased taxes, massively cut spending, and borrowed vast amounts of money. We spent more per capita bailing out banks than anywhere else on earth. Again, criticism would generally be of _doing that, rather than becoming bankrupt_. corporate tax for example was ~38% in 1996, 10 years later after bankruptcy it was 12.5%. Personal income tax was ~48% in 1996, 10 years later, it was 42%. Spending vs gdp, 38.6% gdp in 1996, 33.6% in 2006. I dont agree with your analysis at all. Moreover these 'we' clearly indicate to me you're not objective. >By any reasonable metric Ireland was in a far better fiscal state in 2019 than in 2006, and we had a fairly extensive and expensive response to covid. Until a few days ago I didnt know what ireland did for covid. But no, what north america did was significant different from what ireland did. The irish response seemed to have been about reverse course years earlier which is shocking to me. The reality is that ireland couldnt afford a covid response and the government fully was aware. >This is incorrect. Ireland's marginal rate has been 48% or 52% depending on whether you count PRSI (which is not strictly an income tax), has been for over a decade, and continues to be. My source is The Office of the Revenue Commissioners https://www.revenue.ie/en/personal-tax-credits-reliefs-and-exemptions/tax-relief-charts/index.aspx https://www.revenue.ie/en/personal-tax-credits-reliefs-and-e... Clearly indicating 40%. >Actually, you know what, I'm not going through the rest of this. This is peak HackerNews; absolute nonsense, stated confidently. I'd suspect the involvement of an LLM, but for the grammar. "Absolute nonsense" is the biased person who has gotten several fact incorrect.

rsynnott 3y ago
Again, not going to address all this nonsense, but as someone who’s lived here all my life, do you really think I don’t know what marginal rate of tax I pay? Conventional income tax is 40% marginal rate. USC, which is also an income tax, is 8% (depending on how cynical you want to be, you could say that it was separated out either for more progressive banding, or for the financial-crisis-era government to be able to vaguely pretend it was not massively increasing income tax). PRSI, which is a social insurance tax but which behaves almost exactly like an income tax until you are over 65, is 4%. For a total of 52%, or 48% + 4% social insurance tax for real pedants.

rsynnott 3y ago

Again, not going to address all this nonsense, but as someone who’s lived here all my life, do you really think I don’t know what marginal rate of tax I pay? Conventional income tax is 40% marginal rate. USC, which is also an income tax, is 8% (depending on how cynical you want to be, you could say that it was separated out either for more progressive banding, or for the financial-crisis-era government to be able to vaguely pretend it was not massively increasing income tax). PRSI, which is a social insurance tax but which behaves almost exactly like an income tax until you are over 65, is 4%. For a total of 52%, or 48% + 4% social insurance tax for real pedants.