A great accountant & employment subsidies

With the aid of a great accountant I just completed my tax return yesterday, right on the deadline. What's the big deal? Well the big deal is during the review of figures I missed a sneaky move by our Minister for Finance and his mandarins. What sneaky move? Simple really, the income levy applies to your rental income too. No sympathy? Here's a Government with troubled citizens all over the place (including yours truly) and they are taking blood from the proverbial stone. As in the income levy applies to your property rental income before deductions. 

To be honest I don't particularly mind that, what's troubling me really is the amount of effort made by our civil servants in extracting more out of business compared to the amount of effort being made to help business. A case in point is the recent Employment Subsidy scheme http://www.employmentsubsidy.ie/. Not only was it a tough application process - they (EI) did not engage nor did they encourage applicants. What was the result? Under subscription. In a troubled employment market we had under subscription for a €9,000 grant for each endangered employee. Bizarre! 

Now the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) is looking for a second call with a broader scope. So the first round of applicants (likely to be the most desperate) will IMHO be disadvantaged and hard done by. 

From the DETE site: 
The Tánaiste said that she was surprised that applications under the Employment Subsidy Scheme had been less than anticipated and she confirmed that, as a result, she now intended to proceed with a second round with broader criteria.

“Details of a second broader call for applications with extended eligibility criteria open to both exporting and non-exporting firms will be announced next week. This Second Call takes into account some of the issues raised by businesses and representative bodies concerning the original call. The Second Call will therefore be open to many companies that were not eligible to apply for the First Call. This Second Call will be limited to value of the First Call and will once again be managed by Enterprise Ireland.