Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I note Mr. Barnes has said this issue needs to be addressed. This is not the first time IFAC has called out this issue. It called it out last year and the year before but nothing has changed. Many members of this committee and the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach have called also out the unrealistic projections. The SPU is a wee bit meaningless, to be honest. It is just ticking a box and does not provide a proper assessment.

On the Government's medium-term forecasts, the IFAC report states:

They show income tax receipts growing unrealistically fast relative to incomes. This is not consistent with the Programme for Government plans to index the tax system, which would reduce growth in income tax receipts.

I ask Mr. Barnes to expand on the cost of indexation per year as committed to in the programme for Government. How does it deviate from the SPU projections? How did IFAC make the strong assessment that income tax forecasts are not credible?