Interesting. My view would be it’s giving a refund to those who don’t need it on money they probably would have spent anyway. While lower wage workers or anyone on the covid payment get nothing. It’s a no brainer as to which is the right policy choice in my view, give vouchers and it’s all equal.
In that case it’s an ineffective measure that will only help people who don’t need it.
Less well off people shouldn’t be going on holidays could be the subtext here
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Is it not people who are paying any tax that get it?
Exactly I think we’re onto the same point, if you can afford to go on a trip you will anyway, if you don’t have the cash to pay up front and wait for refund you won’t be able to. Very unequal
How many on the lower rate of tax will think about applying for a tax rebate? How many are on the covid payment now? Carers? It’s actually a disgrace of a measure when you think about it.
What’s that supposed to mean? Are you calling them stupid or something?
Well, the overarching goal in my view is stimulating demand for sectors that have been the most badly hit - ideally using savings, not just gov money.
If you wanted to just inject gov cash without trying to lure in increased consumer spend you’d use grants or a tax cut rather than vouchers surely
The idea of doing it from Oct is good in my view. I think additional people will spend on breaks away now , need them to do it after the peak season too and this could help drive that.
Me neither. Banking on people’s inertia in claiming to keep the cost down
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Watching Varadkar’s Prime Time interview last night and reading between the lines, it seems that they plan for the SCHOOLS to be open full time, but not every YEAR or CLASS will physically attend school each day. Think they’re playing around with semantics.
Are they not launching an app or something to make it dead handy?
They only get half the rebate
Pretty much everything is a disgrace of a measure for you though
It’s aimed at helping the sector - not the consumers though. It’s looking to drive additional spend.
Give a voucher for €125 - €125 is spent
Give a tax break for €125 - €650 is spent
It’s all about the spend into the sector
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I think it’s a decent, relatively cheap way of incentvising people with cash to spend it in an industry which needs support. I think vouchers would be ridiculous. Try and think about it a bit more. You might come full circle.
Wait - the €125 off €625 is at the 20% rate right? So any taxpayer can benefit?
Lots of countries have done vouchers. They benefit people equally. In fact they benefit the people who need them more rather than the other way around.
That presumes the voucher will be the only spend which seems unlikely to me.
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The other problem it seems is that the locals in the tourist areas don’t want the tourists. Listening to some of them there on the RTE radio they were moaning about the amount of tourists coming in. Mostly Irish tourists, giving out about not doing social distancing or wearing masks outside.
Anyway doesn’t matter now Leo has said it’s ok to go on holidays to Greenlist countries.
So increase costs for publicans across the board and greatly reduce the footfall? Sounds like a viable plan.