A couple of months ago, in the course of researching a piece, someone said to me in passing that 2021 would of course be better than this year. Let’s hope we can avoid the threat of successive major lockdowns and reopenings, as the toll on the domestic economy is climbing quickly. Heading towards 2021, we need to be clear where the big economic risk lies: it is jobs and unemployment and the deep damage threatened by waves of business closures. The public finances are a problem, too, of course, and budget deficits are going to rise again here and across Europe. Tax receipts have held up remarkably well so far, which has helped to pay the bills, but data published by the Revenue Commissioners this week showed income tax receipts falling back behind 2019 levels again for the month of September.

Source: The Irish Times October 31, 2020 01:10 UTC