Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Rural Independent Group's proposed amendment No. 2 is exactly the same amendment that we put forward for the past few years, so fair play to the Rural Independent Group in that regard. I would like to put this on record, and I said it during the budget. The total income that comes to PAYE workers, or to the 2.8 million workers who pay tax and USC, is €130 billion. Their total tax and USC contribution on that €130 billion is €27 billion. That is from the Department’s ready reckoner. Corporations’ total income is €203 billion and their total tax contribution is €11 billion. That is an extraordinary contrast, is it not? The corporations make €203 billion. That profit has gone up by approximately 172% in gross declared pre-tax profits since 2012. Therefore, the corporate sector makes about 70% to 80% more than workers in pre-tax income. It pays almost three times what 2.8 billion workers pay, who between them earn only €130 billion. That shows in a stark way that the workers get less and pay much more. The corporations, whose profits have gone through the roof, earn much more profits and pay much less tax. That is just unfair in our view and we will continue to highlight this.

This particular amendment intersects with a number of other amendments that seek to address that, whether it is through wealth taxes, or a higher earners’ social charge to replace the universal social charge, which, for the record, we have always said should be abolished completely. We are for getting rid of the universal social charge completely and replacing it with higher bands of income tax on the highest earners with a higher income social charge. I think that is fair and justifiable. It is, in our view, the elephant in the room that is never really discussed or touched upon. On that basis, I intend to move my amendment and will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.