Alarmist media headlines over the past week give the impression that €2,500 could easily be deducted from the wages and welfare payments of householders boycotting the registration and payment of the new household tax. In fact such legislation does not even exist at this time. Nor does any legislation allow for the tax itself to be deducted.
Angela Merkel and the major EU governments are taking an interest in making sure Irish working class people pay up for the economic crisis. They are going to check Brian Lenihan’s budgets from now on, just to make sure they contain enough cuts. And to pacify their “European partners”, Brian Cowen has ordered his Ministers to come up with €3 billion in cuts by the end of the month.