14/05/2015

FG Hits Out At Plans To Increase Tax On High Income Earners

Plans to increase tax on high income earners has been slammed by Fine Gael.

MEP from Dublin, Brian Hayes, said it does not make economic sense given Ireland's 'fair' and 'progressive' system of taxation.

Mr Hayes said: "Our income taxation system is progressive and fair. The more you earn the more you pay. The top 1% of income earners pay 21% of total income tax and USC in Ireland – this is up from 19% due to changes made in Budget 2015. On the other hand, 76% of earners, who have salaries of less than €50,000 per year, pay 20% of the total tax take. The system is geared towards fairness and balance.

"Parties of the Left believe that all our problems can be solved by a very large tax increase on those earning more than €100,000. The difficulty with their suggestion is that we don't have enough people earning that level of income.

"Of the 2.1 million taxpayers, just over 103,000 cases, or 6% in total, have gross incomes over 100,000. Pretending that 6% of the people are going to solve all the expenditure and tax plans promised by hard left politicians in an election campaign is populist nonsense."

(CD/JP)

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