All workers earning up to €75,000 will be better off under budget plans drawn up by Sinn Féin, the party claimed today.
It has proposed a €100,000 cap on public sector pay, the abolition of the universal social charge, a 1 per cent wealth tax and a third 48 per cent tax rate targeting the better off.
Finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the measures would go towards funding a €7 billion jobs package while protecting lower- and middle-income earners.
“Everybody earning up to €75,000 will be actually be better off under the direct taxation, under Sinn Féin’s proposal,” he said.
“For those above €100,000, we genuinely believe that it is fair and right to ask them to pay seven cent more on each euro that they earn above that figure.” Sinn Féin’s alternative to the Government’s plans would demand those who earn most pay most, and would take half a million people out of the tax net, he said.
The proposals include a 1 per cent wealth tax on assets of more than a million euro but not including farmland, business assets and a fifth of the value of main homes worth more than a million euro.
A new third tax rate band of 48 per cent would apply to incomes of more than €100,000.
Arguing for the universal social charge to be scrapped, Mr Doherty said the reintroduction of the health levy and income levy, at a lower rate of 1 per cent on income up to €75,000, would be fairer.
The €7 billion jobs stimulus programme would come from €5.3 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund and another €1.7 billion from the European Investment Bank, the party said.
Sinn Féin said the three-year investment plan would create 60,000 jobs and thousands more indirectly while saving 96,000 jobs.
A further €2.5 billion would be pumped into rolling out high-speed broadband with another €1 billion injected into wind generation projects, creating 50,000 jobs over 15 years.
The party has ruled out household and water charges, VAT increases, any rise in student fees, septic tank charges and excise duty increases. It also vowed not to reduce social welfare, frontline public services and the capital budget.
Sinn Féin also said it would provide for every child in the state to get a free hot meal at lunchtime in school as well as a money-saving book scheme.
Promising to lift the recruitment freeze on nurses, teachers and gardaí, the party said it would create 3,500 extra frontline jobs. It also outlined plans to build 150 new State-run creches, 100 more schools, with the refurbishment of another 75, and the construction of 50 new healthcare centres.
Mr Doherty said waste-saving measures would include capping public sector pay at €100,000, including that of semi-State chief executives, cutting State board fees by a quarter, with similar cuts on professional charges to the public sector.
Government salaries would be capped at €100,000, TDs at €75,000 and senators at €60,000, it states in its pre-Budget submission.
The party has also argued for a 5 per cent tax on online gambling as part of its €4 billion adjustment package.
Mr Doherty said Ireland would remain classified as a low-tax state under the proposals, which, apart from the wealth tax, had been fully costed by the Department of Finance.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said his party was offering “citizen-centred” policies that would lead to a recovery in the economy. “The government has a choice,” he said. “It can choose to carry on with the failed austerity measures of Fianna Fail or it can choose to implement a budget which is fair and which cherishes children instead of bond-holders.”
PA