IMF plan to cut women's income tax rate by five percentage points

Started by slayton, Nov 28, 2010, 12:07 AM

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slayton

Quote
'Sexist' tax cut would benefit Ireland as a whole

IMF plan to cut women's income tax rate by five percentage points could raise Ireland's GDP as well as tackle inequality

The revelation in the news yesterday of an IMF proposal to lower the income tax rate of Irish women returning to the workforce by five percentage points, was greeted with bemusement swiftly followed by derision.

A number of angry men were quick to cry foul, branding the initiative "sexist". One popular daytime radio presenter described it as a "tax cut for the girls" and went so far as to speculate that any additional take-home pay resulting from what he branded a "sexist law" would be spent on "shopping and hair". A secondary, more measured, debate arose between women with children, who tentatively suggested that there might be some merit in a measure that counteracted the prohibitively high cost of childcare in Ireland, and women without children, who felt that they would be disadvantaged.

It is clear that this is intended purely as an economic rather than an equality measure. Its source, an IMF staff position note entitled Lifting Euro Area Growth: Priorities for Structural Reforms and Governance, recognises that the implicit tax on the gross income of second earners in Austria, France, Ireland and the Slovak Republic tops 70% and creates a barrier to re-entry into the workforce. The IMF estimates that "cutting labour income taxes paid by women by five percentage points would increase the GDP level by 1¾ percentage points, for a fiscal cost of ½ percentage point of GDP", a cost benefit analysis that is difficult to ignore.

The document also recommends better childcare support, although no specific details are given. A similar economic argument was used by the Norwegian government in 2004 when it introduced very effective gender quotas for the boards of publicly quoted companies. Arguing that diversity creates wealth, Ansgar Gabrielsen, then the Norwegian trade and industry minister, wrote a law requiring private firms to have at least 40% women on their boards into the Public Limited Companies Act rather than the Gender Equality Act, reasoning that Norway could not afford to ignore the talent inherent in half its population.

Leaving aside economic justification, any proposal that goes some way towards reforming the unequal employment environment that prevails in Ireland deserves serious consideration. Lowering income tax by five percentage points would go some way towards closing the gender pay gap of 8% that persists even when equivalent educational qualifications and responsibility are taken into account. Significant enactment of equality legislation has failed to achieve this.

The difficulties that undoubtedly exist in persuading productive women back into the workforce after childbirth have contributed to a situation where women account for just one in five management positions in Irish SMEs. The family unfriendly nature of the workplace spills over into the political and public service arenas too. Just 14% of elected representatives in the Irish parliament are women and women account for less than one quarter of Irish senior civil servants.

Blunt instruments such as gender quotas and differentiated rates of taxation are often decried as unfair or discriminatory. Yet decades of progressive equality legislation and cultural change have failed to remove the barriers that prevent women from realising their true potential. To effectively tackle the endemic under-participation of women at every level, and benefit from resulting societal and economic progress, we need radical step changes. There is evidence of an increasing political will to introduce the more equitable childcare and parental leave models pioneered by Nordic countries but this will take time. An instantly implementable policy such as the proposed tax break may prove to be a worthwhile and widely beneficial short-term measure.

davis2ab


There is no shame. It is sexist.  It is already true that the government wealth shifting machinery by and large takes from men and gives to women (particularly single women with children).  Where I live, it is virtually impossible for a single woman with a children or children to be "poor." I know one who gets a reasonably nice apartment for $53 / month.  Of course, it is very, very possible for a single divorced man to not only be poor but be jailed.  Even if the man manages to stay out of jail, he very frequently is squeaking by. He certainly isn't likely to get ahead. Meanwhile, yes, programs exist for single mothers to go to college, etc.  The women's movement has absolutely nothing to do with equality. By the way, as we all know this wage gap is largely the result of women choosing comfortable, safe jobs with good hours. Women rarely leave comfort and convenience and safety as men often do.

The natural result of what is going on is enslavement of men for the benefit of women.  Men have always toiled for the benefit of women. The difference now is that women do nothing in return for men.  The women sit in their government apartments collecting government benefits and child support with no obligation or expectation that they benefit any man.

Quentin0352

Gee, I guess custodial fathers don't have to pay for those things, right? Just goes to show that men like me with custody are left in the cold because we supposedly have it so easy compared to women.

K9


Gee, I guess custodial fathers don't have to pay for those things, right? Just goes to show that men like me with custody are left in the cold because we supposedly have it so easy compared to women.


You are (and I was) in the minority. Gender feminists and their gov't stooges have seen to that.  :angryfire:
Explaining misandry to a feminist is like explaining "wet" to a fish.

poiuyt

Ordinary folks don't understand that an open but undeclared war on males and maleness has been rageing beneath the tranquil surface of cultural civility and polite society for some time now. And this gender war even though apparent to most local observers, as merely a social problem between the sexes, is infact instigated and insinuated from an international socialist economik point of view.

Those whom openly speak of a "gender war", say it only in jest or are unaware of the full depths and ranges to which Police-States, bankrolled by international financiers, motivated by a subdue-enslave-and-create-profit-off-the-people mentality, have inveigled and subverted their national governments and institutions.

It isn't suprising at all, just how globally uniform and socialist are the multi-trillion dollar Country-wide bail outs, the capital-restructurings and the quantitative easing measures, in prologue and aftermath effects to male sections of national populations.

Each financially crippled country, overborrowed from its previous rounds of coerced socialist spending, is either "assisted" by unrefusable monetary offers, or simply forced, by international credit reference blackmail, to accept beforehand of immediate need, agreement or discussion, inordinately large sums of IOU money. That is, by way of uncollaterised, non-asset-backed electronic debit entries of cash to its imf and world bank accounts.

The ensnared country is then obligated by sovereign credit referencing agencies of the imf and world bank into signalling back to the money brokers, its continuing, common and aligned intent of perpetual readiness and capability to repay and service the forceably incured loans. i.e using social engineering techniques of gender conflict creation and cretion of wealth by legal enslavement of sections of their populations. This is achieved by further intrusions to liberty and more broader commodification of males and maleness via proposing more anti-male policies, more antimale-legislation and more institutional led misandry by which the onerous loan repayments and interim debt servicing is perpetually guaranteed.

That is why soverign debt is universally rated AAA in the most man-hateing societies on earth. It is only these male slave colonies and genderist republics that are able to perpetually assure the international financiers of fascism and socialism of repyment !!!

Dog-stupid women in these subverted countries, because they are more willing parasites and egotistical theives, whom always disliked honest work, continue to believe and agree with the false message of their hostage national goverments. That is, their hostage national governments which use feminism to excuse and justify theft, and the murder of inocent men for cash and property, in the name of womens rights and privilages.

But even more stupider are the men in these subverted countries, whom feeling self excused by repeatedly parroting the new social dispensation, because they are proud, vain and ignorant, or simply inferior creatures after an illusory power over their fellow man, accept the dubious State imperative, however absurd or contradictory ... ... That is, of womens rights, privilages and equality, for which they readily agree to serve as impliments and tools against each other and against their own interests. Now aren't these men whom loose both ways, not the greatest fools of all the characters mentioned ... ?

poiuyt

One thing quite clear about proponents of international socialism, feminism, genderism, INGSOC and other communist dielectisms is their uniform unscrupulous and disreputable tendency.

Take for example this exhibitionist and feminist, always ever so aggressively pursuing public service offices for public service fees. Emblematic and characteristic of her and her socialist kind is a pursuit of public administration and public dispensation positions over existing wealth and existing resources that others must first create and then place in a Treasury. That is such as to suborn and subsidise socialist spending and socialist fiscal sentiments.

Quote
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28948925
IMF's Christine Lagarde 'under investigation'
IMF head Christine Lagarde says she has been placed under formal investigation for negligence in a French fraud case but has not been charged.

She has been questioned several times about her role in a 400m euro (£318m; $527m) compensation payout to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008.

Ms Lagarde, 58, was finance minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government at the time of the award.

Mr Tapie supported Mr Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election.

He was once a majority shareholder in sports goods company Adidas but sold it in 1993 in order to become a cabinet minister in Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government. He later spent eight months in jail over a football match-rigging scandal.

Mr Tapie sued Credit Lyonnais over its handling of the 1993 sale, alleging the partly state-owned bank had defrauded him by deliberately undervaluing the company.

His case was later referred by Ms Lagarde to a three-member arbitration panel which awarded the compensation.

Investigators suspect he was granted a deal in return for his support of Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ms Lagarde, who took over the role of director of the International Monetary Fund in July 2011, said last year that her decision to refer Mr Tapie's long-running dispute with Credit Lyonnais to a panel of judges was "the best solution at the time".

Although being placed under formal investigation does not necessarily lead to trial, the development could raise questions about the rest of her term at the IMF which is due to end in 2016.

She told AFP news agency she had no intention of resigning from the IMF and said she was due to return to New York later on Wednesday.

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