Results 21,981-22,000 of 32,864 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I have a table of the figures concerned. If the Deputy gives me a moment, during the course of further questions, we will aggregate the figures and I will be able to answer his question. For the sake of clarity, I said between €30,000 and €70,000. I agree with the point made by the Deputy that somebody on €30,000 is clearly on a significantly lower level of income...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I believe tax reduction and reform has a role to play in a resilient economy. I have outlined a specific agenda on this. As I said on budget day, and reiterated at this committee, I do not want to put in place measures that remove people from the tax net entirely, whether that be on top of the people already out of the tax net. In other words, I do not want to find myself embarked on a...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The evidence also points to the fact we have marginal tax rates that are very high in comparison to other countries in the OECD against which we compare ourselves. Workers enter the higher rate of income tax at a low level in the Irish tax code. Over time, I want to change this. The Deputy may take a different view, but I do not believe it is fair that somebody on an average wage is...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, I do. I also believe it is an issue when people work extra hours either through overtime or additional work or take on additional responsibility and the amount of income they get for that. Once they pay these high levels of marginal taxation, their additional efforts are not merited. We are entitled to different political views on the matters. The OECD and other analyses comparing...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: If the Deputy considers the budget in its totality he will see that the tax reform and reduction we deliver in respect of personal taxation is by and large offset by revenue-raising measures elsewhere. I struggle to see how the Deputy can describe this as a tax-cutting budget overall, given that its total revenue-raising measures are in excess of €700 million. He is correct to say...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is wrong.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: No, it is wrong. The Deputy needs to consider the total amount of funding this budget has raised. As he knows, most of the budget day package went into additional expenditure in many areas where the Deputy would welcome it, whether in social welfare or the maintenance and steady growth of a universal child care model to try to tackle the issues surrounding the quality and affordability of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy is wrong. As we get into this Bill I have no doubt we will thrash this out in detail and frequently. I never made any reference to what the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, did with his surplus. As the Deputy knows, I pointed to a fact that is correct, which is that at a time when the economy was growing and approaching full employment - I think it is possible this...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: If the Taoiseach defined people who are on middle income as people who are in receipt of the minimum wage, I have to say that up to this point I would have seen people on minimum income as being on minimum to low income overall. That is why I would see the middle wage definition starting at around €30,000.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Revenue records show that 770,000 taxpayers are exempt from the USC and therefore do not have USC liability. Approximately 500,000 taxpayers pay the lower rate of USC, which represents about 19% of taxpayers. About 1.1 million taxpayers, representing about 43% of taxpayers pay the next phase of USC, currently 5%, which will fall in January. The top rate of USC is paid by more than 224,000...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Some 40% of income earners are earning between €30,000 and €70,000.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: We will do that and I can give the Deputy the answer during the session.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: It sounds consistent with the figure I gave a moment ago, which indicated that 40% of people were earning between €40,000 and €70,000. It truly would be a McCreevy-esque policy to say that people earning €70,000 or less should pay no USC at all.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I make two points on that. I should have responded to the Deputy's earlier question. I entirely take his point and it might surprise him that I agree with him that the income interests of people on very low income are of course entirely different from those on very high incomes. This is why I have tried to prioritise resources that are available to me on the standard-rate cut-off point as...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy knows the reason for that. Those who are on low levels of income already pay lower rates of tax than they have paid in the past. Let me give some figures on that. Somebody earning €15,000 will have an effective tax rate next year of 0.8%. By comparison, somebody earning €55,000 will have an effective tax rate of 28.9%. As the Deputy knows, the income gains in...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not. It is not a case of me trying to pick figures to illustrate a particular argument. I am just trying to give an overall view of where our tax code is at the moment. I go back to a point I have emphasised a number of times here. If a person is on low levels of income in our society, his or her effective tax rate is substantially lower than someone who is a middle or high-income...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not. The reason is that the person who is on a higher level of income has a higher effective rate of tax and is paying more in taxation in cash terms as well. The only way in which I can undo the kind of effect that the Deputy is referring to is by taking more and more people out of our personal tax space, which will go right back to the policies that caused us such difficulty in the past.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: We will have that figure for Deputy McGrath in a moment. As I am giving that figure, I now have some of the figures that were asked for earlier on in the session. I gave the figure overall that we have 400,000 taxpaying units between €20,000 and €30,000. We have 217,000 between €20,000 and €25,000, another 61,000 between €25,000 and €27,000 and...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I aim to set up the working group after the passage of the Finance Bill. My ambition is that I will get an update or a report from the working group in advance of budget 2019. As for how long it will take to do, it is a very significant piece of work that will take between three and five budgets. I am going to proceed with great care. The object of the approach is actually to strengthen...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is my objective.