A Thursday Blog up-date by Donie

We want to tax your Lotto Winnings…?  

‘We need the money badly’

  

Winning the Lotto is something that everyone has dreamt about at some stage in their lives, but if a killjoy politician has his way, the few of us who are lucky enough to hear our numbers drawn will be faced with even more tax.

The Irish Daily Star reports that South Kerry Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin wants to tax all Lotto winnings over €500,000 so the State can benefit from our luck.

“If someone is lucky enough to win €8million in the Lotto, which is quite a frequent occurrence here, a 10 per cent tax on the amount over €500,000 up to €4million would yield €350,000 for the State,” he said.

Mr Griffin says that either way the jackpot winner would still be walking away with a hefty sum that “he or she would be very happy with.” He also stated that with 260 National Lottery draws every year, there would be considerable potential for the State to generate revenue.

So basically, the Government wants to take a decent chunk out of money you’ve won yourself. What next? Maybe they’ll start putting a tax on children’s communion money – at this stage, it honestly wouldn’t surprise us too much.

“I am sure the National Lottery would not be overly happy with this proposal, but it is a win-win situation. The State would win, while the jackpot winner would not complain too much,” Mr Griffin said.

However, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has refused to agree to taxing Lotto winnings.

“When one has a successful model going, I think one should let it operate,” he said.

The most important question that we should be asking is would Brendan Griffin be willing to hand over a sizeable chunk of his winnings if he was lucky enough to hit the jackpot? Hmm?

Social networks ‘Are harder to give up than cigarettes or alcohol’

   

You’ve just checked Facebook for the latest status update and Twitter for any new tweets.  So what do you do now? Check them again of course. 

According to a study of people’s everyday desires, resisting the urge to check social networking sites for updates was harder than saying no to that second glass of wine.

Resisting the urge to log on to social networks like Facebook and Twitter proved harder to resist than alcohol and cigarettes, according to a study

Researchers from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business fitted 250 participants with electronic devices that logged almost 8,000 reports about their everyday wants.

Sleep and sex may have been the two things the participants most hankered after during the day.

But it was Facebook and other social networking sites that proved the hardest to resist.

Despite their addictive qualities alcohol and tobacco didn’t hold as much sway over the participants, the researchers found.

Dr Wilhelm Hofmann, who led the study, published in journal Psychological Science, said: ‘Modern life is a welter of assorted desires marked by frequent conflict and resistance, the latter with uneven success.’

He added the study also revealed how our constant efforts to resist the temptation of social networks or other desires throughout the day meant our willpower was zapped by the end of it.

‘As a day wears on, willpower becomes lower and self-control efforts are more likely to fail,’ Dr Hofmann said.