The squeeze continues

When tax hikes are seen as easier options than expenditure cuts, then something is rotten in the state of Ireland, writes Brian Keegan.

Michael Noonan: more taxes, rather than cuts, are not the way forward. Photo: Bloomberg

'The only fair tax is one which somebody else pays." Such is the quality of the policy debate as we face into our fifth austerity budget and fifth successive year of increased taxes. Already the usual suspects are being lined up - the "wealthy", the "tax exiles", the "multinational corporations". Anyone who isn't you or me will do to stump up for the gap between what we take in taxes as a nation, ...