Summary: <br> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Fleming" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Seán Fleming</a>, currently Fianna Fáil TD for Laois, if the gods of the ballot box smile on him he might become the Fianna Fáil TD for the reconstituted constituency of Laois Offaly. He’s been a TD since 1997 and for 15 years before that he was Financial Director of Fianna Fáil at national level.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> Gavin Reilly’s twitter thread helped me in researching this interview:<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1216802428856782848?s=19<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> This is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200116132916/http://www.checktheregister.ie/appforms/RFA2_English_Form.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">the three-page form</a> (plus three pages of explanatory notes) that you need to fill in, get stamped at a Garda station, and hand in to your local authority office during office hours if you want to get on the supplementary register. Anyone who is trying to work out if they are currently registered to vote might not find it possible. This is what I got:<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> Nobody likes taxes.<br> <br> <br> <br> People don’t like<br> paying taxes, but they also don’t like talking about, or even thinking about<br> taxes. It stresses people out. You can even see that in the support for<br> proposals for things like ‘flat taxes’ because people think that they will be<br> simpler, even if they pay just as much or more.<br> <br> <br> <br> Politicians know this,<br> particularly when they make promises like this.<br> <br> <br> <br> And, of course when<br> those promises are broken, there are serious ramifications. Any politician<br> going into an election promising to introduce a new tax isn’t likely to<br> prosper. But that’s just what the economist David McWilliams is recommending. And<br> he’s right; in fact, he doesn’t go far enough.<br> <br> <br> <br> McWilliams article on the<br> topic is titled <a href="http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/the-party-that-taxes-land-hoarding-will-get-my-vote/?fbclid=IwAR3XqbbXWxf6fx9VUcZBYLwtTPiUxI8JTg6uFk1BhAic40hzbi7RUW327h4" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">The<br> party that taxes land hoarding will get my vote</a>. I would argue that we<br> need an wide-ranging property tax that covers all – well, all property. That would<br> include houses, building land, agricultural land, commercial and industrial<br> property, the lot.<br> <br> <br> <br> Before you start<br> saying that you don’t want to pay any more tax, bear in mind that I’m not<br> advocating you should pay more tax. I’m saying that taxes should be levied in a<br> different way. To be clear, this is not to collect more tax or less tax. This is<br> to collect the same amount in a different way.<br> <br> <br> <br> So why go to the<br> bother of changing the system if you’re collecting the same amount of money as<br> before? The reason why is because incentives matter. Right now Ireland is<br> almost unique in the developed world in that almost our entire tax take is<br> levied on economic activity, with income tax, VAT, stamp duty, excise duty, VRT<br> and others. Ireland has basically no taxes on economic inactivity.<br> <br> <br> <br> And this matters. If you<br> tax brown bread and don’t tax white bread, then people will eat more white<br> bread. This has a real impact on people’s economic activity.<br> <br> <br> <br> Right now, hoarding<br> and speculating on property gets attracts no tax whatsoever. We have plenty of<br> experience with tax exemption schemes for everything from nursing homes to the<br> film industry, and the reaction to them is very predictable. When you make an<br> area of the economy tax-exempt, you suck in not just capital, but also talent<br> and initiative.
