Irish Budget 2010
The date for the 2010 Budget has arrived at last – but just before Christmas it could dampen any Christmas cheer.
Some of the expected changes in the Budget today : (See here for updates on the Budget )
Spending Cuts - are likely to make up most of the estimated 4 Billion savings in the 2010 Budget proposals. With the “Bord Snip ” report as a starting point – there are plenty of choices. The most likely (and unpopular) cuts are Child Benefit , Public Sector Pay and Social Welfare spending.
Child Benefit could be cut by ten per cent with a compensation package for welfare recipients.
Most other benefits will be cut by about five per cent. (But not Old Age Pensions)
Unemployment benefit for under twenty threes will fall by twenty per cent
A prescription charge of fifty cent will be introduced for medical card holders.
A&E charges will rise
The threshold for the drug payment scheme will also rise.
Taxation
It is possible that taxation residency rules and some tax reliefs will come under review in the 2010 budget.
There is a strong possibility that the government will abolish the employee PRSI ceiling of €75,000 – but this is probably going to be done in stages – along with reductions in the income levies introduced in 2009.
Pensions : The new Programme for Government mentions plans to introduce a single 30 per cent tax relief on private pensions. This may well be done in one go in the 2010 budget.
Debt -The government is planning to will introduce new measures to protect home owners facing difficulties with mortgage repayments. A new statutory debt settlement system that operates outside the courts may be announced.
A new Carbon tax will probably be introduced in the budget, but the government has committed to protect those most at risk of ‘‘fuel poverty’’.
A Car Scrappage scheme is probably going to be announced – but only on the purchase of greener low carbon emission cars.
I have no objection to a carbon tax, as it puts choice into the hands of the people, you have a choice on the type of car you drive, a choice on how efficient your home is. But in terms of a fuel tax on transport, it should be a stand-alone tax. i.e. vrt needs to be abolished.
October 21st, 2009 at 16:02agreed about the VRT it is illegal in terms of the EU free trade legeslation but as for people having a choice on what car they drive, they don’t really I drive a car that was given to me by my mother its a banger and is barely road worthy i am on the dole i’ve 2 kids my husband is out of work i’d love a nice prius but i can’t afford one, I live in a thirty year old house its freezing we get 390 a week on the dole and 60 goes into heating the house and i don’t bother putting on the heat untill 5 in the evening because if the house were warm all the time it would cost 100 or more a week, again i can’t afford to do anything to the house. I have worked all my life i’ve been working since i was 15 paying tax (it was legal back then), I alone provided a full time job for a creche worker or 2 with the amount of money i had to pay on child care while working ball park €1800.00 a month. myself my husband and my children have lost everything,our jobs our home the school they attended and we now have no hope for the future other then more misery more poverty and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, its intolerable and i would rather that the ground had opened up and swallowed all four of us then have to live the rest of our lives like this, I would not have had children if i had known i would be unable to pay for them or provide them with the things they deserve.
December 9th, 2009 at 05:46