BUDGET UPDATE
3.50pm No change in Corporation Tax rate of 12.5%
3.50pm No change in Corporation Tax rate of 12.5%
Flowing from Tuesday’s Budget, high earners can expect further restrictions on property tax reliefs and every buy-to-let investor can expect more reductions in the amount of mortgage interest they can offset as an expense against rental income, The Sunday Business Post reports.
Proposals to increase the €200 non-principal private residence (NPPR) charge could raise up to €100m in additional revenue a year for local authorities, with both coalition partners favouring significant increases.
Residency rules and qualifying criteria for artists’ tax exemption and Section 481 film projects will be tightened but the current reliefs are likely to remain unchanged after Budget 2012, according to The Sunday Business Post.
Families with three or more children can expect to have their child benefit payments curtailed in this week’s Budget, which will also see a rise in student registration fees, according to The Sunday Business Post.
The Government is likely to hit savers with a higher Dirt tax in this week’s Budget, costing investors about €1 for every €1,000 they have on deposit, The Sunday Business Post reports.
The Government hopes to raise €14m in 2012 by extending the 1% betting tax to cover offshore, online and phone betting, augmenting the €26m the state currently derives from betting shops.
As Cliff Taylor, Editor of The Sunday Business Post, notes: who needs to raise income tax when you can introduce levy after levy with the same effect? Of course, this is an old refrain readers of the Noone Casey round-up will be very familiar with. Taylor argues the Government has no choice, given the hairshirt demanded by the bailout.
Needless to reiterate, it isn’t great out there and the president of the Irish Tax Institute, Bernard Doherty, tells The Sunday Business Post it isn’t likely to get a whole lot better. Doherty notes we can expect the introduction of household charges and increases in VAT and capital taxes as well as possible changes affecting PRSI and pensions in the upcoming Budget but “the devil will be in the detail”.
Many motorists are staring down the barrel of a 63% increase in car tax and everyone faces a 4c a litre increase for every litre of petrol after the forthcoming budget, according to The Sunday Times.
The Government projections for additional revenue from the Vat increase are already in doubt and finance minister Michael Noonan has admitted as much, according to The Sunday Independent.
The Government is planning to reduce the universal social charge (USC) for the lower-paid in the forthcoming December 6 Budget and to find ways of increasing taxes on wealthy exiles, according to The Sunday Business Post.
Cliff Taylor, the editor of The Sunday Business Post, says the Vat hike will certainly hit retail sales and will affect the poor disproportionately – the question is will the measure have the desired effect of raising the bulk of tax revenues required under the terms of the so-called bailout? And now the cat is out of the bag regarding how the government intends to raise the tax component of the €3.6 billion our Troika masters are demanding.