Fianna Fail’s tax plans reward the wealthy

Fianna Fáil – the architects of the dreaded Universal Social Charge (USC) unveiled their tax plans today. A leopard doesn’t change its spots and unsurprisingly Fianna Fáil’s tax plans will favour wealthy people over low and middle income workers. Their tax plans have no claw-back mechanism to ensure that higher earners pay their fair share.

Under Labour’s plan, USC will be abolished on incomes of up to €72,000. The benefit will be frozen on incomes between that level and €100,000. There will be a claw back on the benefit for those earning over €100,000 so that at €120,000 there will be no benefit.

 Our progressive tax plan means that in year one:

·  A worker on €25,000 will benefit by €44 a month. 

·  A worker on €50,000 will benefit by €26 a month.

·  But a worker on €120,000 won’t benefit at all.

Over the five-year lifetime of our plan, the taxes of that same worker on €25,000 will be reduced by a third – or more than €1,100 a year. But someone earning €120,000 or more will continue to pay the same taxes as they do now.

By contrast, Fianna Fáil have no proposals for a claw back mechanism and as a result their USC cuts are not progressive.

Furthermore, for low paid workers Labour will extend PRSI relief for workers between €18,000 and €36,000 to increase their take home page – of course Fianna Fáil have no such plans. In fact, their economic strategy document made no mention of minimum wage workers at all.

Fianna Fáil may talk of fairness but their proposals are anything but.