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ENDA KENNY AND Joan Burton have ruled out an immediate scrapping of the Universal Social Charge amid pressure from their respective backbenchers over the unpopular tax.
The Taoiseach and Tánaiste were speaking during separate pre-Christmas briefings with political correspondents when they both ruled out any immediate scrapping of the USC in face of calls from Fine Gael and Labour backbenchers.
Kenny said that he would hope to take around a quarter of the workforce out of USC altogether with changes in the next Budget after some 80,000 people were removed from the paying the charge in last October’s announcement.
The coalition has now taken over 400,000 people out of USC since it came to office in 2011.
Labour TDs and senators have been particularly vocal on the issue of scrapping the tax altogether in recent weeks, but Kenny said: “It’s not possible to do that given it brings in €4 billion at the moment, as you know.
“We made some adjustments at the lower and higher end in order to keep fairness and focus on the lower and middle income families between the minimum wage and €70,000.”
Burton said that USC “is a very significant tax revenue for the government” and added:
“To suggest that it could be abolished overnight, without any replacement revenues, I think would be simply to try and mislead people.”
Both party leaders highlighted the changes in last October’s Budget which they says will remove a further 80,000 from USC with those that do pay the charge seeing a reduction in the amount they pay in their wage packets from next month.
“So, what we intend to do is continue with the same sort of package in the next Budget, as we did in the last Budget,” Kenny said.
“That means that we would hope to bring the number of workers whom this Government will have exempted from USC to almost 500,000, which is about 25 per cent of the workforce.
Burton said her objective is to reform USC “over a period of years” and also raised the possibility that it could be used as a contribution for future pension payments.
She explained: “What I have suggested is that the area where that could be used is, in fact, to assist people in increasing their pension over their lifetime.
“So that we would move to a situation where, like the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, we would develop a supplementary pension model which would allow people to save, over and above the State retirement pension, and I think there is some scope for reform there.”
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Its never easy to abolish a tax but seems very easy to introduce new taxes. I suspect they dont want to touch the usc until just before the general election.
Its the carbon tax of wages.
It’s being reduced later this week!
It came in overnight, it can go overnight.
And borrow the 4 billion a year it generates? Only a fool would do that. It will have to be reduced gradually.
USC also has to be looked at in the total tax context. Someone on 35k will be paying less than 20% in total income taxes (income tax, PRSI & USC) in 2015.
Reg, The USC horse is dead,So stop flogging it.
They never should have labelled it a “temporary charge” in that case!
I’d rather not be paying it Genius but I’m a realist who likes to provide a few facts to counter some of the horse manure that appears here!
What about the PRD , or have any of you forgotten about that. Or do you even know what it is,
They have had almost 4 years so far! Nobody asked for an overnight job!
no Reg you’re just a sheep who accepts blatent lies from our government. yes the USC generates 4 bn, so why don’t we make up another tax that will generate 10bn….. it was brought in as a temporary measure for 2yrs, of course none us of believed that because we are used to the lies. and although it generates so much it does not make it right, plus we’ve paid enough.
I have no objection in paying tax, I just like to get something in return, like decent health care etc.I do object that my tax money is used to en richen private companies and individuals.
Thankfully FG & Labour can be abolished overnight & that’s what’s coming to both in the next GE.
Maybe if we didn’t have such stupid spending we could abolish it.
Like taking 600 million from local services to fund irish water.
Maybe getting rid of the social welfare christmas bonus and give the workers a Christmas bonus.
12.7% of our budget was allocated to debt and debt interest, surely we could at least try negotiate a deal or level of debt write down.
Cannabis regulation is estimated by the UCD school of economics to have a net benefit of 576 million euro annually.
Look into the report by the controller and auditor general, the states public spending watchdog. We wasted 12.7million in compensation to Anglo depositors, 3.3 million on a now abandoned project to build a new state pathology office.
A Civil servant was paid an extra 300,000 a year in overpayment due to an administration error.
Overpaid taoiseach and president topping salary and pension tables worldwide.
This country has the money but the government is just to selfish and inefficient to do anything about it
No argument with your points Kevin, however, we have a pension crisis looming in this country that will dwarf the debt issue. Even with no debt or a deal of some kind and even if this recovery is real and continues for years, the reality is that if we are in a position to manage without this revenue it will never be put back in our pockets. It will be redirected towards the future payment of pensions.
I wouldn’t class Anglo depositors as wasted money, they are ordinary people just furrowing some savings away.
I think the first thing I would change is the unvouched expenses anywhere in the public service.
You must remember the Anglo Irish Bank was not for the ordinary joe soap,yet they are paying to bail out this rich mans bank,IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
It’s called stealing your money. Money you earned to pay off EU foisted bank debt.
Sean, you cant say that on the Journal, You will be branded a conspiracy theorist.
A tax Payment introduced to pay off the debt left by bankers. It should be abolished in total. We didn’t need it before this mess and we won’t when we are out of it and wiser for it. Has to be removed in total. The only way I would agree to keep it is if it went towards a tax model similar to our scandanavian neighbors. Free quality services for all. But it won’t.
Usc needs to be absolutely abolished now why should the people pay for past government incompetency and Europe’s incompetent banks and systems we need our unions and political parties to say no
We did need it (or some variant) before the mess, otherwise we wouldn’t have been so reliant on property taxes.
Does anybody remember the pay cap for bankers that was abolished over night ?
Is a ‘banker’ anyone who works in financial services? Or must they work for a bank? Or must that bank be state-owned? How about a private hedge fund asset stripper? How about a highly leveraged property developer?
Lack of clarity makes a nonsense of these populist measures.
This is another promise broken
I’m a nurse. I’m down more than €600 a month. I want it back. We are paying USC etc to repay an unsolvable debt incurred by investors, financed by the banks and facilitated by all the political parties, all if whom btw should be tried for treason for deliberately undermining the state by bankrupting it.
Rant over; my point is we can scrap the USC if we stop repaying the bailout. What are they going to do, repossess the country lol? C’mon lads you are only in Leinster house coz we put you there, we are the real power and you are all going next time. We should vote for someone who will stop repaying the bailout. Who might do that?
USC was an emergency tax like everything we told always lies .
You need to be earning over 100k for the USC to take 600 a month. How do you suggest the government pay that wage without tax? Your the one going to have to take a paycut not someone in the private sector. Think about it.
How on earth could a ‘nurse’ produce such an uneducated, ill-informed opinion.
If any party says they will abolish our payments to the bondholders will win the next election by miles.We need the government to look after its own citizens first before paying anyone else.
Clearly I am not earning €100,000 per year. But all of the extra charges,levies etc add up.
Just maybe trying to provoke some thought outside the strait jacket.
Mushroom politics is what caused these problems in the first place, yknow, keep them in the dark and feed them s.it?
We are the electorate, we decide who governs don’t we?
You’re right I was just havin a rant. Free country.
What is also disgraceful regarding this emergency taxation is that if you require assistance from the social welfare and you earn slightly more than minimum wage when you get means tested social welfare do not take into account the USC or PAYE deductions. The only reason why they don’t take these two into account is that they know tens of thousands of people/Couples would qualify for assistance
If the USC was abolished I would have no problem paying for water.
I have no problem paying for water in principle but I cannot support Irish Water in its current form.
Been off the books requires investment but when your set up costs take 9 years to pay who in their right mind would invest?
I also wouldn’t give any money thats managed by John “poolbego” Tierney who wasted 20 million of our money on a failed project.
Swapping one tax for another is idiotic why someone even considering paying water charges to this dictatorship government who
Know nothing no other way of getting money other than taxing people who voted for them
Kevin – You are already paying for water through 2% of your VAT spend & 5% Motor & VRT payments !
Why would you want to pay for it on the double ???
But Joan and Ends will be abolished over night on the next election.
The chickens are selling our homes to the rooster…
They certainly won’t be going in on their own…either of them. SF don’t get enough transfers and Fianna Fail have nothing to offer thats disimilar to FG. Too many indepentdants will destabilize any coalition and Labour will not exist after the next election.
Paul, what is more frightening is the ignorance of the electorate. I have posted factually correct information regarding Sinn Fein and the USC, I have been red thumbed by naive and foolish people who simply do not quite get it. They will vote for anyone who they think promise that they won’t have to pay property tax, water charges, USC and the llike. God help us. As Churchill said ‘the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter’..
Anyone who needs to quote Churchill is automatically on a losing streak. Churchill is the genius who supported sending the ‘Black and Tans’ onto our streets and is also credited with creating the very first concentration camp on the planet. He was a terrorist and a war criminal.
Patlyndo – I presume that those who waved the red thumb just don’t agree with you !
Has Enda barred us from having a different opinion this morning too ?, as well as getting his Labour Party Poodle President to lie down and sign The Irish Water Bill too ?
Ah Cal. Ignore the points made why don’t you. Good man and thanks for proving my point….
An Ciarraoich, it’s no me they’re disagreeing with, it’s on the sinn Fein website?????
Sinn Fein won’t get rid of it either. In 2011 they were screaming for it to be abolished. Last year they were looking for it to be cut for those on/below minimum wage.. my nephew is one such person. He pays no tax and 5 euro USC. The more people you take out, the more the rest have to pay.
Sinn Fein arent just against the USC, they have actively attempted to get rid of it.
http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/20359
“Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald TD has today published the text of a motion which will be laid before the Dáil next Tuesday during Private Members’ Time.
Sinn Féin is calling on the Government to abolish the Universal Social Charge and to ensure that all taxes and social insurance contributions are raised progressively so that those who have the most pay the most.”
Kevin, that link is from 2011. Please read my post again. In 2011 they sought to abolish it, in their budget submission for 2014 they sought to only get rid of it for those on/below min wage. Can’t link at the mo……
USC is/was a progressive tax! It charges high earners a much higher rate than low earners.
Claiming you want to abolish it for a tax that hits high earners is populist propoganda and treats the Irish voter like an idiot who doesn’t understand taxation.
If you accidentally click the above link, however, I recommend people have a read through the SF 2015 alternative budget – there’s some policies in there that might be enlightening, unless you’re not into that sort of thing.
Unfortunately every opposition budget submission is a reaction to the current economic state the government has formed themselves.
If there’s one thing I would agree with enda on its that it cannot be done immediately, it’s probably possible to do in one budget but not smart.
Low income earners are the people who need it most and I believe they should be the first to have usc abolished.
Sinn Fein no longer trying to abolish it though, as with their turnaround on the water issue, they continue to shift positions to suit the mood of the public. Watch as the USC issue grows legs and then watch them spin again.
Can’t see it happening. As I said, I think it will be redirected towards your pension down the road. The pension issue was one issue that had to be tackled, regardless of any other problem.
The only evidence that they won’t abolish it suggests they will abolish it over 2-3 budgets.
Water issue I don’t see any spin, non payment was decided by Sinn Fein after the government refused to back down.
Read the article. It will never be reversed. Sinn Feins change of tact had nothing to do with the government, it was in response to the people standing up.
When did they ever do the right thing.
The misnomer that too many Independents will destabilise a government is put out there by the political elite to scaremonger. The alternative to a destabilised government is a detached autocratic government who will not listen. A ‘We know whats’ best for you’ or ‘This will hurt me more than you’ approach plays into the gullibility of the Irish Electorate. 1. Vote for a local Independent Candidate that best supports your viewpoint on a local stage. 2. Force the puppet masters in Brussels to support Ireland as opposed to the other way around. Ask yourself will you be worse of in a destabilised Ireland, where the political and business elite lose the stranglehold on power. So far the only truth in this whole mess has been… ‘You can never underestimate the gullibility of the Irish People’
Don’t be so quick to call irish people gullible when judging by your comment everyone else seems to grasp the whole concept of having independents in government much better than you. 50 different ideologies do not make for a cohesive and reliable governmental group. They would likely to have split opinions on several things as there is no ‘party line’, this would in turn hand power back to parties such as fine gael, fianna fail and sinn fein to make a majority on a vote.
We need to destroy the civil war party system even if it means a shed load of Independents in power.FG/FF need to be crushed before this country can move forward.People have had enough of the corruption that comes from these crooked parties.
“Paddy likes to know”… That’s what Kenny and all politicians think of the electorate. Cloth cap paddies. Well look out kenny, Paddys coming…
The €4bn the USC takes in just happens to roughly match the debt repayments on the bank bailout portion of the national debt.
However the €4bn USC is a progressive method of taxation as opposed to the comparatively measly €448m generated from the LPT and €150m (at best) from water charges.
“And just how do you expect us to be paid?” Said Joan & Enda when asked about getting rid of the USC.
It was introduced overnight. So it can be abolished overnight.
I knew Higgins would sell us up the river. He’s a kept man, ex Labour and wants to be relected. He’s a waste of space always was and always will be…
This dwarfs days are numbered anyway
That water tax agreement was not fair Higgins sold us to the devil
We could abolish Kenny and Burton’s jobs overnight , and that would be a good start to remedying the Country’s ills. I’d suffer USC for another while , to see the back of those two misfits!
Get rid of that universal social charge joan and ends or we will get rid of ye in the election.why are we paying this charge ?can it be challenged?
Just as well they’ll both be gone before we know it
Abolish pensions and Children’s Allowance payments to the people that are on 100k or more. This would provide a big chunk of money that could create new services like Irish Water as one example, affordable childcare as another and then people might not mind the USC as much.
Why do only fools and horses work?
Abolish the USC and put in on to the VAT rates then everyone pays some bit not just the working people, but no that would hurt the “most vulnerable”. Ie the scroungers.
You are funny. SF has already stated they will gladly power share with FF. As have FF said the reverse.
Keep voting for parties. We’ve had almost 100 solid years of their success.
The only reason people are protesting about the water charges and not the USC is because the water charges affects the wasters in our society and the USC doesn’t. That’s why the USC will be left, punishing the working people
It’s came in over night, that’s what is keeping most of the show back!
As log as you vote Fianna Fail next, it will be ok.
Why should you allow history to help to decide?
Keep voting for a political party. Sure their mandate is to survive …… but who knows … you might get lucky!!
Bring on the Fianna Fail/Sinn Fein coalition.
2016 will be fantastic….. political parties all the way.
100 years of trial and error, you can bet my left and right lung they finally have it right.
Stop trying to disregard SF by assuming they will be going in with FF.
But they could come up with iy overnight!???
We took in 1.2 billion more then expected this year in tax it could altered to reflect that and the same done next year if revenue was to increase again.
Why would they scrap this? these vermin are nothing more than thieves and liars drunk on power and backed up by spineless ragbag advisors
Universal Social Charge……define please? If it covers water charges, tv license, road tax, waste collection then it would make sense to pay. What is universal about this charge when some pay and others don’t and gives me nothing in return. I refuse to be anti social therefore abolishing my requirement to pay this crap.
We will pay €8.5 billion to cover the interest on loans that even former members of the IMF are telling us should never have been ours. Threaten the nuclear option and watch merkel and draghi squirm.
We have also given away €250 billion worth of fishing stock since joining the EEC back in the day. Imagine the money that could be made if we had control of that?
Finally, there will be no changes until we change the way we elect incompetent relations of retired or dead politicians.
Pity they didn’t think the same as the water charge
Just go to hell the two of you
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