Coalition to avoid further taxes on salaries

MINISTER FOR Communications Pat Rabbitte has said the incoming property tax will mean the Government can avoid imposing more taxes on salaries.

He said no decision had been taken about the format of the value-based tax to replace the €100 household charge but the most important thing would be that the average rate was fair.

“The decision has been taken that there will be a property tax, that it will take over from the household charge and that it is at the behest of the troika, and that it is an attempt to broaden the tax base so as to avoid imposing more taxes on people who go to work,” he said.

Mr Rabbitte declined “to guess or make a stab” at what the average rate might be.

“The important thing is that whatever the figure or figures are, that they are fair.”

He said that Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan had not yet made the report of an inter-departmental group chaired by former senior civil servant Don Thornhill on this issue available to fellow members of Cabinet. “As soon as we get that we will resolve the outstanding issues that have to be dealt with,” he said.

The Revenue Commissioners, who will have responsibility for collecting the tax, have already begun work to devise a scheme for its collection.

Meanwhile, Mr Rabbitte said he was “sorry” the implementation of proposed personal insolvency legislation had been delayed. He also indicated the European Commission’s warning that the €3 million upper limit of debt was too high could be taken on board.

“The bill is a hugely, hugely important one. I’m sorry that it has taken so long, but it has taken so long because it is so complex and partly because other priorities were imposed on us by the troika,” he said.

“But an enormous amount of work has gone into it and Minister Shatter in particular has invested in this modernising statute, and he has said that he will be open to reasoned amendment during this committee stage process.”

Asked for his position on the promised referendum on the future of the Seanad, he said he was personally in favour of abolishing the Seanad because the chamber replicated the Dáil.

“We don’t need a second house that is a replication of the legislative chamber. Government has committed to holding a referendum and it will do that.”