Results 9,401-9,420 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: The model the ESRI uses is very bad on welfare.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: Following all the discussion on progressiveness, I would like to point out there was no increase in income tax in this year's or last year's budget.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: This is the only increase - the universal social charge. There seems to be general agreement, for the reasons I described already, that people do not oppose this particular increase in the universal social charge for people who had an unjustified exemption previously. I agree with Deputies who have said that we need to take all parts of the story together, because the different decisions...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: Yes.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: No; the surcharge is 3%. The rate went to 10% for those who were paying the 7% rate before the surcharge was introduced. The surcharge took the pensioners who were paying at 4% up to 7%. The 3% is added on in the new regime as it was in the old regime. The relativities are unchanged.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I am assured that it is not equalised. I will come back to the Deputy on it after I have received a note of explanation.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I will get that for the Deputy.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: If it was introduced in the budget, it would amount to €71 million over two tax years - this year and next year. The break was somewhere around €38 million and whatever adds up to €71 million for the next year. Deputy Pearse Doherty's point needs an answer. Any person who has been self-employed with self-employed income exceeding €100,000 will pay at a rate of...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I have no embarrassment about my budgets, which have been crucial to the economic recovery that is now quite evident. The examination of individual measures in the budget has made a major contribution to the fact the economy is growing again and that there is, for the first time, a significant impact on employment figures in the recent labour force survey. I do not agree, in principle,...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I am sorry, but I missed the phrase used by the Deputy.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: We are not extending the scheme.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: No, the foreign earnings deduction scheme.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: There is a concept in politics and public administration which is generally summed up as the paralysis of analysis. We do not want to get into that situation. The Government must govern. We can look at things all of our lives. In the context of the crisis in which we find ourselves, taking decisions is the important thing to do. We must also ensure that those decisions are valid and are...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: Yes, but those would be typical couples. If the Deputy wishes to suggest other examples we could provide in respect of particular couples in the next budget, we will take his advice on board.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: The core of the debate is a valid point being made by Deputy Doherty that our decisions should be evidence-based, that such evidence should apply both to economic factors and to social factors and that we should do our best to position ourselves to form budgets and to introduce finance Bills on that basis. I agree with that proposition. However, in debating the proposition, Deputy Doherty...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I am reluctant to give any commitments because it may not be generally known but there are only 40 officials working on the tax side in the Department of Finance and they are averaging two finance Bills per year. They work late into the night and frequently work weekends. Most of them are in grades that do not attract any overtime rates and are doing this as their contribution to the State....
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: This has been an anomaly in Committee Stage and Report Stage debates. If a member of the Opposition proposes an interesting and valid amendment, which is fully costed and gives tax relief, but cannot support it with an accompanying amendment that raises the yield foregone, then it looks kind of lopsided. I think it runs from the constitutional provisions on the Minister for Finance being...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: I do not think it is necessary because there is no additional cost in this proposal. Companies can claim the credit so what is at issue here is a better way of doing things but at the same cost.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: It is a full review of all aspects of the research and development regime. This particular proposal is a modest measure with no costs to the Exchequer. Its purpose is to remove a barrier which prevented small businesses from accessing the key employee relief. Given that there is no additional cost to the Exchequer it does not make sense to wait a further year until data is available when...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2013: Committee Stage (6 Mar 2013)
Michael Noonan: Yes.