The Finance Bill taxes retirement fund values that total over Euro 5m at 42%.  This ceiling, to be indexed annually at the Minister's discretion, is arrived at by using a multiple of about 30 times an imputed pension of two thirds the earnings cap of Euro 254k for tax relief into private retirement funds.

But, ho hum, when capital sums are to be calculated on public service pensions like those of past  Ministers, TD's and Senior Civil Servants the factor falls by one third to 20 times the golden pension benefits in the state sector which, arguably, should really be capitalised at 40 times because of their risk free nature and pegging to wage negotiations.  This is feather-bedding plain and simple.  Once again the Private sector is being disadvantaged by rule setting that's designed to keep public service pensions the best deal in town.  Hmmm, wonder if the capital value of these supercharged guaranteed pensions is factored in during benchmarking negotiations.  Gotta go, a pig just flew by.