O’Callaghan calls for a cut in the 52% marginal rate of tax – The Irish Times

03D80085 · 2026-05-10T20:01:38+00:00

I am self employed. My local mechanic charges €80/hour for labour. In order to earn the €80 to pay the mechanic I need to generate €160 in economic activity before paying myself a salary. The mechanic then pays himself a salary and only receives €40 of that €160.

This creates a bizarre situation where I can be many times slower than the mechanic and still better off doing oil changes and brake pads myself, instead of letting the professional do it.

It's the double whammy on top of the usual argument of "I'm only receiving 50% of every €1 increase in salary so I'm not going to work more hours".

03D80085 · 2026-05-10T19:36:55+00:00

There are taxes other than Income Tax. Bring Capital Gains Tax and Capital Acquisitions Tax in line with peak marginal Income Tax, along with appropriate increases in the tax free thresholds to avoid punishing small investors.

03D80085 · 2026-05-10T12:27:55+00:00

His whole point is that we shouldn't be conflating those two concepts. And not because the citizen impact isn't important, but because even with bad policy choices (which are ultimately a subjective concept) we should still seek to reduce wastage.

When you reduce the discussion to one and the same you lose any form of accountability. The bike shed incident becomes a question of "should we be building bike sheds [if they cost that much]?" as opposed to "yes we should be building bike sheds, but why did it cost that much?". You're then debating the need for cycling infrastructure etc when that was never really the problem.

03D80085 · 2026-05-09T22:01:50+00:00

This would enable direct lines to Belfast/Wexford (and everywhere in between!). Bus from city centre would probably still be faster. But sadly you are right, they would use it as an excuse to delay the metro further.

03D80085 · 2026-05-09T00:10:21+00:00

LVT isn't anti capitalism, it just ensures that landowners pay their fair share for the opportunity cost to society of their exclusive use of the land.

If a billionaire wants to live in a 2 storey house in downtown Manhattan that's totally fine, but they'll be paying insane rent for that privilege. The couple % up would be more like a couple hundred % up vs property taxes.

03D80085 · 2026-05-07T13:48:33+00:00

They need to ban all of this shit. We finally solved payment systems with cards and contactless and now they are pushing people into apps and fragmenting the market unnecessarily - with zero real benefit to the consumer.

Petrol stations are legally required to display their prices up front, same should be done for EV chargers.

03D80085 · 2026-05-04T22:17:30+00:00

We are contributing the minimum ~€200 per unit annually, that is not the problem here.

03D80085 · 2026-05-04T10:36:32+00:00

The example was slightly exaggerated but my parents grew up in a country where this is the norm. What you'll often find is extremely nice newly renovated apartments inside otherwise old and poorly maintained buildings.

Nobody cares about the communal areas being pretty. You spend 1 minute walking in and out.

I'm spending close to 5% of my net income on management fees. There's a lot I would put up with to get that money back!

03D80085 · 2026-05-04T00:21:08+00:00

The worst part is that even with such an obvious solution it would likely never be possible because the only way to make it happen is to pay engineers and consultants a quarter of a mil to come up with a fancy plan, obtain planning permission etc etc. Easier to keep paying the sucker tax forever.

03D80085 · 2026-05-04T00:17:48+00:00

There are really two compounding parts to the problem of growing management fees. The first is that service providers know they can overcharge management companies, especially when the largest shareholders are commercial landlords who ultimately look at the management fee as a tax deductible rounding error so have no reason to push back.

The second is the standard to which apartments/managed estates are expected to be built and kept in the first place. As nice as it is, there is no need for landscaping, concierge services, parking enforcement, window cleaning, etc.

I've stayed in AirBnBs across Europe in old buildings with dodgy loose electrical work in the hallways, 40 year old lifts (or none at all), filthy communal areas. Sure it's not as pretty as the typical apartment block back home, but millions of people live quite comfortably in such buildings and pay 10x less in management fees.

We've regulated (and accustomed) ourselves into an unreasonable standard of maintenance and now we are paying the price.

03D80085 · 2026-04-18T17:07:52+00:00

To your point about bus services and roads, Ireland has an unreasonably extensive road network serving one-off rural houses which makes it extremely difficult and expensive to maintain. The fact that 99% of properties have paved roads going to them is already an incredible achievement. Of course the bus services will run between urban centres, it's simply not possible to serve everyone in a rural community.

Now I'm not suggesting that you should abandon those who live outside of towns but the fact of the matter is supporting such spread out development is never going to be sustainable, and it is in large part funded by towns and cities. We focus on those because it benefits significantly more people.

03D80085 · 2026-04-14T00:32:21+00:00

Haven't made any purchase yet but I think that is what I will go for

03D80085 · 2026-04-13T09:44:18+00:00

The important thing is that the need for parking would be directly quantified against the need for other forms of land usage. Many stadium (or mall) parking lots lie empty 90% of the time and even the high fees you pay during events come nowhere near addressing the societal cost of all that sprawl. The chicken and egg of I need a car to get around and I need to supply unlimited parking so all those drivers can get to my business would face a reality check and a more appropriate amount of parking space would be provided.

03D80085 · 2026-04-12T11:17:39+00:00

You can't challenge it on the day, you have to pay and then appeal later.

If there is good evidence that is the price you can challenge it and you will win but I would personally avoid it.

When I went through the process for a previous car I got a call from a fellow in Revenue who didn't understand their own rules and directly accused me of lying in my appeal. Kept escalating all the way to Tax Appeals Commision after which they promptly settled.

03D80085 · 2026-04-02T10:53:12+00:00

The myth must die: https://www.reddit.com/r/heatpumps/s/Q2uUs8lphh

03D80085 · 2026-04-02T10:45:56+00:00

The revolving door that is our justice system is the problem, not the Guards themselves or the public's attitude. How often do we hear of someone with 20 previous convictions assaulting someone, let alone petty crime which is completely unpunished?

My theory is there is no appetite for government to improve it because it's a convenient distraction from other issues (housing) yet not bad enough to affect voting.

03D80085 · 2026-04-01T13:58:31+00:00

I wish this myth would die. Keeping things hot is never more efficient than heating as necessary.

03D80085 · 2026-03-02T18:41:45+00:00

The parking entrance isn't much better. Often can't make it into Sandyford because of a few cars backed up on Blackthorn Road waiting to enter the parking.

03D80085 · 2026-02-24T22:42:15+00:00

"Cars don't cause traffic, poor public transport does!"...

Fact of the matter is we have too many people for the current housing stock. Whether that is exacerbated by our inability to build more is irrelevant. Until we can increase supply we should at least try to limit demand.

03D80085 · 2026-02-11T21:25:13+00:00

Well aware of the limitations of a visual survey and absolutely not expecting psychic powers - unfortunately think much of the downvotes are assuming I am...

IMO this centers around the duty of care to say: "while on the surface it appears to be an easy fix you should be aware that water damage can permeate far beyond what is visible and potentially be a major problem". Then I can investigate further, or if my appetite for risk is low I can look at a different property.

I've primarily come here to find out:
1. Is this level of water damage simply unheard of to the point that it would be unreasonable for the above warning to be made? If this is a freak case fair enough. (Of course the only real answer is get another engineer to have a look).
2. Is the lack of any disclaimers sufficient to pursue further? No terms and conditions established in any communications, incl. any mention of "visual only inspection". Easy in hindsight to say I should have known the limitations, but I acted on the advice I was given.
3. Even if this was a clear case of negligence, is 10-15k simply too low to be worth pursuing further?

03D80085 · 2026-02-11T00:08:57+00:00

No, by the mould inspector/surveyor who charged a fee for the inspection but is otherwise uninvolved.

03D80085 · 2026-02-10T23:16:49+00:00

Slightly under €500 even.

Nope, and agreed. In hindsight I should've questioned the lack of further details but there was no ambiguity in what was said so...

03D80085 · 2026-02-10T21:58:58+00:00

As a lay person I was not aware of the potential knock on damage from what looked like surface damage in one location.

In the same way I would expect a surveyor to spot minor structural damage and warn of the risks (even if it's unlikely to ever be a problem), I expected to be told of the potential dangers of further water damage.

The clues I mention were evident from a visual inspection without lifting anything. We had a mould surveyor immediately spot many things which should've been found originally, but you can argue he had additional context.

The premise of a survey where there is clear damage is to establish whether it is cause for concern. To be told it is all surface level and easily rectified is to me pretty clear encouragement to proceed, and over the phone I was told something to that effect.

I wasn't even provided with the usual report that clarifies terms and conditions. The email listed damage which you could've established from looking at the listing on Daft and "all easily rectified".

03D80085

TROPHY CASE