Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I agree that this is a complete con. It is a new tax. We have been given all kinds of assurances about people on minimum wages not being included in the tax net. They are not in the income tax net but they are caught in the net with this charge. This charge started as a universal social contribution with an element of contributing and getting something back but this recently changed to a charge. It is a new tax, a new way of squeezing money out of people. It is shifting the burden of taxation from the better-off to low income people. This is the whole purpose of this charge and the Government should be honest about this purpose.

A number of points of clarification are required. Will the current exemptions applying to the health and the income levies apply to the universal charge? How will it interact with family income supplement? This charge kicks in for low income people at the level of €4,000. It is designed to bring people with incomes in the region of €4,000 into the tax net and it is fundamentally unfair. Pensioners are now going to be caught with the combination of this universal charge and the lowering of the age exemption, so that a pensioner couple, with an income of just under €40,000 will be caught for an additional tax of €2,000 a year as a result of this measure. This is about hammering people on low and modest incomes and nothing else.

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