Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 8, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:“3. The Minister shall, within one month of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on options available for removing the USC liability for all workers earning less than €19,572 a year”.

The purpose of this amendment follows on from the discussion we have had. The Minister indicated the level of income at which people pay and the level of taxes they pay, but VAT and all of the other taxes have not been taken into consideration by the Minister. When we look at the figures, we see that the lowest 10% of earners pay 30.5% of their income in tax while the highest 10% of earners pay 29.5% of their income in tax. The lowest 10% pay marginally more in tax, proportionally, if one takes VAT and all the other taxes into consideration.

Having regard to income, one third of the income of the State is now among the richest 10% of the population. As such, the idea behind the Sinn Féin amendment is to reduce the taxation on low-income earners - those earning less than €19,572. We came to that figure by way of our proposal to raise the minimum wage by €1.50 more than the Government seeks to raise it - that is, to €10.65 per hour. At that level, it would be the threshold with regard to a normal week's work for a worker. We feel the €13,000 figure the Minister has selected falls far too short. It does not redress that imbalance that I outlined at the start of my contribution. We ask the Minister to accept the amendment.