By Ann-Katrin Orr
THE GOVERNMENT have come up with yet another outrageous claim; this time we are expected to believe that the rich pay their fair share of taxes!
Brian Lenihan is trying to paint the image of a “highly progressive” Irish taxation system in which those who earn most pay most. To back up his claim he said that the top 1% of earners (who earn more than €200,000) pay 20% of all income tax. But this figure is misleading and Lenihan’s description of the taxation system is miles removed from reality.
In the midst of talk about Ireland’s exit from the Troika programme and recovery supposedly in sight, the mortgage crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of ordinary people is being deliberately understated.
THE GOVERNMENT has finally come out with more details about how its National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is going to operate.
The proposed NAMA will buy, with government bonds, some 10,000 loans (half of which are behind in their payments and growing) and “assets” worth €90 billion off the banks at a “discount” (to be decided - but the figure of €20 billion is being bandied about).
