OPPOSITION REACTION:THE FIANNA Fáil-led Government was planning to tax Ireland back to recovery, something no other country had ever done, Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said yesterday.
In his response to the publication of the commission report, Mr Bruton said the last thing taxpayers needed now was a Government “dreaming up even more ways to tax them”.
Mr Bruton said his party welcomed some of the ideas in the commission’s report on broadening the tax base to prevent further increases in tax rates for middle-income families, but said reform of the public service also needed to be addressed urgently.
While broadly supporting the recommendation on carbon tax, the party was less enthusiastic about the introduction of a property tax on the basis that it would be hard to implement fairly.
“On top of the usual difficulties facing households with low levels of income, we now have the possibility that hundreds of thousands of young families who were lured into massive mortgages and negative equity, in part to pay stamp duty to the Government, will now face a further tax on property. It is difficult to see how this will be acceptable.”
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said his party was opposed to new taxes given the state of the economy, but he refused to comment on specific details of the report as he had not yet received a copy of it. Speaking at the beginning of a two-day party “think-in” in Cavan yesterday, he welcomed the publication of the report. “It’s a valuable piece of work in the sense that it will be taken into account by Fine Gael as we prepare our own fiscal strategy.”
Labour’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said her expectations for the report had been high, but voiced immediate disappointment that the commission had “sidelined” an in-depth examination of property tax relief, some of which would continue to cost hundreds of millions of euro in tax relief.
She said Labour was not convinced that the commission had come up with a workable model for a system of property tax that was fair and equitable.
She welcomed recommendations on new rules to tighten up tax residency requirements, but suggested they did not go far enough.
Ms Burton also bemoaned what she said was a lack of analysis on carbon taxes and a third income tax rate. She suggested her party’s preferred band for that third rate should have been looked at.
“The report avoids any real discussion of a third income tax rate which would allow for salaries in excess of €100,000 to be taxed at a higher rate of 48 per cent.”
Sinn Féin’s spokesman on finance Arthur Morgan dismissed the report almost in its entirety, saying it was deeply flawed and would result in ordinary householders getting squeezed.