Non-expert points to a lucrative funds source

I’M not an economist. I’ve never had a clue what the ‘economy’ actually is.

Described over the years in varying terms as buoyant, sluggish, failing, vibrant, blah, blah, blah, one assumed it was some kind of metamorphic substance floating above our heads.

I didn’t study economics at school, but I wish I had because it would mean I could throw my learned tuppence worth into the national debate now raging as to how the Government could save the ‘economy’ which has now changed form again — into ‘recession this time.

However, having read all the comments on this subject with great interest, may I tentatively offer an idea — my first — as to how our esteemed politicians could increase revenue?

Collect all the VAT that has been fiddled and not paid to the exchequer. Believe me, judging by the many transactions I do with businesses that don’t accept debit/credit cards and fail to scan items through the system or offer till receipts, there are many enterprises, large and small, cooking the books, so to speak, and making returns far short of what they owe the Revenue.

I suspect that some of the €1.5 billion shortfall in VAT receipts so far this year is due to this.

Time to get tough and stop looking to reduce public sector pay as the only way forward.

Irish people have a complete aversion to receipts for money at all levels — even the politicians queuing up for allowances aren’t, at the moment, asked for receipts to prove they’ve actually spent the money.

It may be conceived as a waste of paper and resources in this enviromentally-conscious age, but I would like to be able as a legal right to demand a receipt for all my cash transactions as a matter of course.

Eventually in this way it would become very difficult to fiddle the system. And all tribunals would end, thus saving even more money.

Jacqueline Cotter

Gortnaclohy Heights

Skibbereen

Co Cork