Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if it was an error on the part of the Minister but the amendment speaks to tapering out the tax credits on incomes between €100,000 and €140,000 at a rate of 2.5% for each €1,000. The Minister, in giving his figures, mentioned 5%. Anyway, that is not the biggest issue. I am not surprised that the Minister has decided to vote against this amendment. Budgets are all about decisions and political choices. You cannot do X unless you have Y. You cannot make investments unless you have resources. The Government will argue that certain things will happen if we raise taxes to a certain effective rate. Let us talk about that. The Minister talked about an income of €120,000. The effective rate this year is 40.7%. Under these proposals, that would increase to 41.8%. The levy of 3% of individual earnings above €100,000 means €300 for every €1,000 a person earns above €140,000. I believe that is fair. However, that money cannot go into a black hole. We need to have a proper social contract involving investment in public services, a proper safety net and so on. The effective tax rate for an individual on €120,000 was higher in 2014 than it would be under these proposals. There is no evidence to suggest that these types of effective tax rates would impact on the economy but they would bring in the resources required to invest.

I will tender a question to the Minister. The Government has ruled out every single type of tax revenue increase. The Minister has talked about abolishing the USC. Was that what was printed on the placard he and his party leader, Deputy Varadkar, held at one stage? There are many photographs of that, taken just before an election campaign. It was then to be merged with PRSI. There have also been other commitments but from where will the revenue be raised to pay for these?

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