+34
Party plans corporation tax of 20%, €500 energy credit and €1.75 per litre cap at fuel pumps to ease cost of living crisis
The central theme of People Before Profit ’s budget is to “tax the multimillionaires” for “an affordable Ireland”. The party’s radical budget proposals include five measures to tax wealth and profits of large corporations.
It wants to tax net wealth above €3 million and increase corporation tax , currently 12.5 per cent, to 20 per cent to raise €45 billion, which it says would fund measures to counter the cost-of-living crisis. It wants to provide a €500 energy credit for every household, which would be funded by an energy levy on data centres, and increase social welfare and disability payments to €350 weekly.
Proposals also include abolishing the USC for employees earning less than €100,000, the introduction of a living wage of €17 an hour and a 10 per cent increase in public pay. It would also abolish standing charges for gas and electricity at an annual cost to the exchequer of €826 million. It wants to impose a €1.75 per litre price cap on petrol and diesel and €1 a litre for home heating oil and green diesel.
This would cost the State about €816 million a year, it said. The party also wants to increase child benefit by 20 per cent at a cost of €458 million and to increase the child support payment by €12 for under-12s and €30 for over 12s, with a €282 million price tag.
“We could fully protect people from the cost-of-living and the housing crisis and improve the quality of life for people if we’re willing to tax the multimillionaires and wealthy in this country,” said party leader Richard Boyd Barrett. He insisted this would “provide us with billions to do things like the €500 energy credit, raise disability payments to €350 a week and a costed disability payment on top of that, and give workers who are looking for pay increases and are going on strike at 10 per cent increase.
” Tánaiste Simon Harris on Thursday again warned of the potential “chill effect” on enterprise and investment in Ireland with a wealth tax, but Boyd Barrett said “they’re discussing wealth taxes in Silicon Valley in California at the moment and it looks like a majority of people may be in favour of introducing millionaires’ taxes there”. He said such taxes are being discussed “in France, Germany, and Spain, in New York.
“They can discuss them in America, in Europe but we can’t discuss them without terrifying people,” he said. “It’s becoming increasingly apparent to people that the cost-of-living crisis is actually a crisis of wealth inequality. ” The Dún Laoghaire TD said corporate profits in Ireland had increased by 150 per cent in the past nine years.
“They are at staggering levels,” he said. “We don’t believe for a minute they’re going to walk away from those profits if they’re made pay an extra bit of tax, or that the billionaires who own the energy companies are going to sort of walk away from the scale of profits that they’re making.
” His party colleague Paul Murphy said there is an inherent instability in such profits and “at one point or another this is going to end and the Irish political establishment has no other strategy or plan”. The party also proposes to abolish third-level fees, at a cost of €289 million, provide free GP care, abolish hospital parking charges and scrap prescription charges for medical-card holders, with a price tag of €1 billion.
It would provide free childcare at a cost of €1.1 billion, double schools’ capitation grants and reduce pupil teacher ratios to 15:1, with a price tag of €737 million. The party would triple investment in social housing, deliver more than 389,000 additional social and affordable homes, ban no-fault evictions and ban corporate ownership of rental properties.
Please follow us on Google to support usPeople-Before-Profit-Solidarity-Pbps Corporation-Tax Richard-Boyd-Barrett Paul-Murphy Cost-Of-Living Energy-Costs
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News: You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Fans’ reaction at Aviva Stadium could make Ireland players think again about Israel matchProtest group plan demonstration to ‘let the players know they betrayed the people of Ireland’
Read more »
Thousands of prisoners unable to use toilet privately amid ‘severe’ overcrowdingPeople needing psychiatric care or access to mental health supports ‘routinely being imprisoned’, report finds
Read more »
Downsizing is no easy taskMany people in my generation are unfamiliar with today’s system
Read more »
‘There is certainly pressure on people to stay relevant in this economy’Hireovate founder Declan Fitzgerald on how AI is changing the game for recruitment
Read more »