Friday's rant

[ronk]

... but there's no way to do this without impinging on other parts of the economy.

Humbug. Tax evasion is a drag on the economy. The economic activity created on facilitators like accountants would mostly be diverted to useful productive economic activity which would create other returns.

It would impinge on vested interests.

Not sure all tax evasion is a drag on the economy.
In actual fact what I would describe as the black economy has a lot going for it.
By black economy I mean nixers.
The little man gets to have a little more disposable income and usually it circulates in the local economy.
The usually middle class man who's paying for the nixer gets a little more bang for his buck.
The net effect of this is that the middle man (the wasteful government and civil service ie the biggest drags on the economy) gets to waste a little less.

I can see why people might think that. That's not really the experience in places with significant black markets though.

[Ruckedtobits]

I can't post this direct under @ronk but I totally agree with him and the proof of it in an EU country for the entire post-War period is Italy.

The OECD has estimated (at various times in the past two decades) that up to 30% of Italian economic activity takes places in the "black economy". Europol estimate that 50% of this activity accrues to one or other of the mafia organisations. That's 15% of the GNP of what is estimated to be the fourth or fifth largest economy in Europe.

The implications for the legitimate tax-payers in Italy, largely the middle class, is enormous. Certainly its not a trend I would welcome here.

[Oldschool]

@Ruck you are talking about organized crime in Italy, a totally different thing to the black economy.
The size of the black economy is one indirect measure of the acceptability of the level of taxation being levied.
Nobody wants to pay tax but most people accept that taxes are necessary.
However there are a number of issues regarding how taxes are spent and entitlement.
There is a serious lack of respect for the taxpayer and in particular the they taxes are paying.
Waste and entitlement abounds and that encourages a black economy.
So in a nutshell I'd agree that a black economy is a bad thing when the people who spend our taxes and the people who are in receipt of a lot those taxes show more appreciation and less entitlement.
Do that and we'll start to see less waste and more bang for our bucks.
It ain't going to happen tho' is it.
People before Profit says it all in a way. Where is the money going to come from in order to put people before profit.
From the taxes raised directly and indirectly(employment) on profitable business.
If taxes are too high then wages are squeezed and PEOPLE lose out and the pressure on the black economy to grow increases.

[ronk]

I think you have the causality the wrong way around. The black economy undermines the fairness of the taxation system.

As countries develop proper institutions that shrink the black economy taxes rates become smaller and fairer. With a large black economy it's desperately unfair on the unlucky suckers who have to pay taxes for everyone.

The most important rule of taxation is that everyone is subject to them. Even if you don't pay income tax you still get hit for VAT and duties.

[paddyor]

I can't post this direct under @ronk but I totally agree with him and the proof of it in an EU country for the entire post-War period is Italy.

The OECD has estimated (at various times in the past two decades) that up to 30% of Italian economic activity takes places in the "black economy". Europol estimate that 50% of this activity accrues to one or other of the mafia organisations. That's 15% of the GNP of what is estimated to be the fourth or fifth largest economy in Europe.

The implications for the legitimate tax-payers in Italy, largely the middle class, is enormous. Certainly its not a trend I would welcome here.

EDIT My post was eaten by the interets

[Oldschool]

I think you have the causality the wrong way around. The black economy undermines the fairness of the taxation system.

As countries develop proper institutions that shrink the black economy taxes rates become smaller and fairer. With a large black economy it's desperately unfair on the unlucky suckers who have to pay taxes for everyone.

The most important rule of taxation is that everyone is subject to them. Even if you don't pay income tax you still get hit for VAT and duties.

If there was no tax there would be no black economy.
The BE is as a direct result of tax levels that are two high.
Excessive levels of taxation encourage growth in the black economy.
The law of diminishing returns in PART, consumption being the other.
I pay my taxes, believe me I'm not in favour of a rampant black economy but if tax levels are too high that's what happens and it's a feedback signal to the.authorities.

[ronk]

I think you have the causality the wrong way around. The black economy undermines the fairness of the taxation system.

As countries develop proper institutions that shrink the black economy taxes rates become smaller and fairer. With a large black economy it's desperately unfair on the unlucky suckers who have to pay taxes for everyone.

The most important rule of taxation is that everyone is subject to them. Even if you don't pay income tax you still get hit for VAT and duties.

If there was no tax there would be no black economy.
The BE is as a direct result of tax levels that are two high.
Excessive levels of taxation encourage growth in the black economy.
The law of diminishing returns in PART, consumption being the other.
I pay my taxes, believe me I'm not in favour of a rampant black economy but if tax levels are too high that's what happens and it's a feedback signal to the.authorities.

Sure there would. There'd still be all manner of unregulated industries like taxi drivers, gardening, guesthouses, childminders, unlicensed plumbers, backstreet doctors...

Most of that goes on to avoid (or is unaware of) being regulated. Tax is an afterthought.

That's one of the things that a black economy costs you.

[fourthirtythree]

Yeah. The black economy is a larger part of the he economy in high tax social democracies than in low tax countries.

Oh wait. Strike that. Reverse it.

Perceived legitimacy and corruption of the state would be a much better starting point, particularly if the Mafia is a centrepiece of your argument.

[Oldschool]

I think you have the causality the wrong way around. The black economy undermines the fairness of the taxation system.

As countries develop proper institutions that shrink the black economy taxes rates become smaller and fairer. With a large black economy it's desperately unfair on the unlucky suckers who have to pay taxes for everyone.

The most important rule of taxation is that everyone is subject to them. Even if you don't pay income tax you still get hit for VAT and duties.

If there was no tax there would be no black economy.
The BE is as a direct result of tax levels that are two high.
Excessive levels of taxation encourage growth in the black economy.
The law of diminishing returns in PART, consumption being the other.
I pay my taxes, believe me I'm not in favour of a rampant black economy but if tax levels are too high that's what happens and it's a feedback signal to the.authorities.

Sure there would. There'd still be all manner of unregulated industries like taxi drivers, gardening, guesthouses, childminders, unlicensed plumbers, backstreet doctors...

Most of that goes on to avoid (or is unaware of) being regulated. Tax is an afterthought.

That's one of the things that a black economy costs you.

The black market acts as a break on excessive taxation so maybe it doesn't cost as much as you suggest.

[ronk]

The black market increases taxes. Think about it. If half the people at a certain (real) income level don't pay any tax then the others have to pay double.

It gives some people a free pass, like working while on social welfare. It uses up funds so the dole is smaller. And honest people who work hard get less money than cheaters so they are incentivised to take up careers that afford them opportunities to cheat. It also erodes the rule of law in other areas, like regulation.

[Oldschool]

The black market increases taxes. Think about it. If half the people at a certain (real) income level don't pay any tax then the others have to pay double.

It gives some people a free pass, like working while on social welfare. It uses up funds so the dole is smaller. And honest people who work hard get less money than cheaters so they are incentivised to take up careers that afford them opportunities to cheat. It also erodes the rule of law in other areas, like regulation.

History would beg to differ with you.
The marginal rate of tax in Ireland was in the mid 60s % wise at one point and it bit early.
The black market was rampant.
The law of diminishing returns was reached, tax increases resulted in a decreased tax take.
Solution taxes were reduced and do you know what the tax take increased.
The black market element is based on risk reward.
Reduce the reward versus the risk enough and the black market decreases in size.
That's not theory, it happened and in this country too.
The government were forced to reduce tax rates and the size of the black market undoubtedly played a part.

[paddyor]

The black market increases taxes. Think about it. If half the people at a certain (real) income level don't pay any tax then the others have to pay double.

It gives some people a free pass, like working while on social welfare. It uses up funds so the dole is smaller. And honest people who work hard get less money than cheaters so they are incentivised to take up careers that afford them opportunities to cheat. It also erodes the rule of law in other areas, like regulation.

This doesn't really chime with our experience of 65% tax rates. Ireland had a massive black economy up until the mid 90s.Taxes even at the standard rate created a kind of poverty trap where it made more sense for people to go on the dole and work 3-4 days a week. Now there's a couple of factors at play(wages were low and fairly stagnant up until the 90s) but ti's a pretty widely accepted axiom that higher taxes drives activity into the black economy. Take fags as an example. We've probably passed the point of diminishoing returns of tax increases as way to reduce smoking(don't it might stop people from taking it up) becuase at this point illegal fags are an attractive business opportunity.. The reason in part we ended up with 65% top rate was bacuase of the black market so you're not wrong but the lesson is really that getting in to a vicious circle of tax increases doesn't work.

The crackdown on money laudnering in the art world is suspected as the driver of NFTs(one sold in the past few hours for $1.5m) and vast swathes of crypto is suspected of being little more than a way of avoiding market regulators.

Interesting article on it here.

https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-m ... -art-world

EDIT I now see Oldschool covered much of the same ground.

[Ruckedtobits]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

[blockhead]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

Where have you been man? It's Munster Night Rugby.
Can you imagine what it would be like if Munster actually won a trophy.

[Oldschool]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

Where have you been man? It's Munster Night Rugby.
Can you imagine what it would be like if Munster actually won a trophy.

Yeah I can imagine, Munster All Week, Every Week Rugby.

[Oldschool]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

I've used this line with another poster recently so apologies for repeating it, but.
Repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result is.......
Haven't listened to OTB in years, literally years and even then it was probably by accident.
And while I'm at it, it's a fair bet that the only Leinster games that will be shown on RTE will be the inconsequential ones like v Zebre or Dragons (that was a miscalculation).
There will be two exceptions to that rule
Guess what they are?

[blockhead]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

Sean Cronin has 43 on his own!

[Laighin Break]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

I've used this line with another poster recently so apologies for repeating it, but.
Repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result is.......
Haven't listened to OTB in years, literally years and even then it was probably by accident.
And while I'm at it, it's a fair bet that the only Leinster games that will be shown on RTE will be the inconsequential ones like v Zebre or Dragons (that was a miscalculation).
There will be two exceptions to that rule
Guess what they are?

In fairness, with Hugh Cahill doing comms for RTÉ, it's much better having Leinster matches on TG4

[heno]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

You need to stop tuning in expecting to hear detailed technical analysis with an equal spread over the 4 provinces. Put on your journalistic hat and ask yourself where is the story this week? Giving more than a couple of minutes to leinster doing exactly what everyone expected leinster to do, isn't going to attract and hold onto the casual listener.
It's like tuning into the traffic reports and expecting to hear what roads don't have traffic.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Oldschool]

Listening to OTB on Monday evening and between Joe, Gerry Thornley & Matt Williams we had almost exactly 30 minutes about Munster. A couple of apologist comments about Connacht being the " better side" but that was the height of analysis of anybody other than Munster.

Two minutes about the forthcoming gap in Leinster's calender but very limited comment or analysis about the Irish Province which is playing the best rugby of all four. One fact Thornley pulled was that the five Leinster front-rows, Porter, Healy, Furlong, Kelleher & Sheehan have scored 68 tries between them for the Province. Extraordinary.

I've used this line with another poster recently so apologies for repeating it, but.
Repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result is.......
Haven't listened to OTB in years, literally years and even then it was probably by accident.
And while I'm at it, it's a fair bet that the only Leinster games that will be shown on RTE will be the inconsequential ones like v Zebre or Dragons (that was a miscalculation).
There will be two exceptions to that rule
Guess what they are?

In fairness, with Hugh Cahill doing comms for RTÉ, it's much better having Leinster matches on TG4

Hats off to you.
That has to be one of the most optimistic glass half full posts EVER.