Sir, - Please permit me to correct the very misleading impression created by a headline in The Irish Times of July 20th which reads: "Tax Plan `a fraud' - SIPTU leader".
There are two reasons why I would like you to correct this and to do so urgently.
First, I used no such phrase in relation to the Tanaiste's tax plans. In the article itself, I am correctly reported as welcoming her remarks last Friday, insofar as she promised tax reforms for the lower paid.
Second, I disagree profoundly with the Irish Regional Secretary of the ATGWU - the person who did call Ms Harney's tax plans "a fraud" - when he said that "increasing personal allowances and extending the standard rate tax band is just another way of providing tax subsidies to upper income groups".
Of course it is true that all taxpayers gain from an increase in tax-free allowances. But the lowest-paid gain most, relative to their incomes. Also, it is essential for many reasons that the entry point to taxation is raised from its present very low level; and this too is achieved by raising tax-free allowances. This form of tax relief is like giving flat-rate pay increases: everyone on the standard rate gets the same amount and so does everyone on the higher rate. Clearly, these amounts are worth more to the lower-paid than to the higher-paid.
That is why SIPTU is campaigning for very substantial increases in tax-free allowances in the forthcoming Budget. - Yours, etc., Jimmy Somers, General President, SIPTU,
Dublin 1.
