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In an effort to prove that the Greens are not in government just to make poor people pay more for their lightbulbs, their Deputy Leader Mary White has proposed that a 1 cent tax on mobile phone text messages would net the government an annual windfall of €1.4 billion.
However, it would appear that these calculations are al flawed as those coming out of the Dept. Of Finance.
Deputy leader [COLOR=#306294]Mary White[/COLOR] estimates that a 1c tax on every text message could raise €1.4bn for the Exchequer.
"In tough economic times, it seems a fairly equitable way of getting revenue in quickly without inflicting too much pain," she said.
The tax would apply to all 25 million text messages sent by Irish mobile phone users every day, or more than eight billion texts every year. But rather than the €1.4bn that Ms White has claimed the move would raise, the real figure would be in the region of €81m.
The deputy said people were free to disagree with her calculations, based on the country's four million people sending an average of 10 texts a day each. But even this only adds up to €146m. Ms White has been discussing the plan with [COLOR=#306294]Communications Minister Eamon Ryan[/COLOR] since last October and hopes to present it shortly to Mr Lenihan after a parliamentary party discussion.
It doesn't add up: Greens' text tax gets a wrong number - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie
It is reassurring that the people have such economic gurus as Ms. White in government at a time of fiscal meltdown.
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Originally Posted by cyberianpan
