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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

More Expensive Public Services

The EU is about to make public services in Ireland more expensive.

The European Commission warned the (Irish) Government yesterday that its practice of exempting public bodies from applying VAT to public services such as car parking and bin charges is illegal.
So rubbish collection, car parking and other local services will all get more expensive. Excellent, lets hope the Irish start to see the negative side of rule by Brussels.

4 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

Doesn't the EU conveiniently get a cut of the money extorted via VAT?

Serf said...

No. VAT is mandated by the EU and they are trying to harmonise it, but they do not specifically get income from it.

Where they do get income is from external tarriffs.

Anonymous said...

Actually this is a positive and pro competition step. If local government services, such as garbage collection and public car parks, are provided VAT free it makes it more difficult for private operators to compete in these areas. No one likes VAT but the EU is right to insist that all vendors are treated equally and has nothing to do with harmonizing sales taxes in different countries.

Tapestry said...

The Irish are completely confused. Their culture developed over centuries as an underdog culture, where they were unjustly poor, hungry and downtrodden.

But now they're rich - I think. Their standard mortgage term is 35 years. Property is so expensive the kids leave Ireland because they cannot afford to live there. I suppose it's an improvement on leaving because there aren't any jobs!

It's a lovely country. It would be a shame to see their culture demolished by asset and general inflation, where it survived unemployment and backwardness.

They will in time grow to hate the EU as much or more than their earlier hatred of Brits. Sinn Fein will come to mean something once more.