Tag Archives: budget

The Government has decided to reverse the cut in a grant for personal panic alarms for sick and elderly people.

As a result of the budget the allocation for panic alarms was cut from €2.45 million last year to €1.1 million in 2013.
Following a campaign by groups representing the elderly and people with disabilities over the past few weeks, the

Government has decided to restore the grant to last year’s level. Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has secured the resources from his departmental budget to bring the allocation back up by €1.35 million.

A story old as time itself. Those key points again…

We’re introducing crippling new taxes and cutbacks.
– No way!
We’re also punching kittens in the face.
– That’s completely outrageous.
OK. No kitten punching.
– Thank God.
Just the crippling new taxes and cutbacks.
– Whew.

Government reverses cut in panic alarm grant (Stephen Collins, Irish Times)

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The problem for Labour is that the party made so many promises in the run-up to the last election. In particular the party produced a poster suggesting that many of the items in yesterday’s Budget, including a cut in child benefit, higher prescription charges, increased student fees and even a rise in the price of a bottle of wine would come to pass if Fine Gael won an overall majority.

Instead the two parties went into government with the biggest majority in the history of the State, and most of the things Labour accused Fine Gael of wanting to do have now been done by the two parties in government.

It is always difficult for a party to convince the electorate that worse might have happened if it were not there, but that is a recurring problem for Labour.

Shame. And they were doing so well, too.

Labour helps bring in changes it warned against (Stephen Collins, Irish Times)

irishelectionliterature

The new property tax to be announced in tomorrow’s budget will be reduced slightly as a result of the late addition of the so-called mansion tax for properties worth over €1 million.

Government sources yesterday confirmed that the levying of a higher tax rate on high-value properties will have a knock-on effect for middle and lower income households but conceded it would be marginal. The rate to be unveiled by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan tomorrow is expected to be 0.18 per cent of the value of the property, with a rate of 0.25 per cent for properties worth over €1 million.

The new rate would mean a tax bill of €450 per annum for a house worth €250,000 as opposed to €500 if the rate were 0.2 per cent.

Well, woop de bleedin’ doo.

Addition of ‘mansion tax’ will see reduced property tax (Harry McGee, Arthur Beesley, Irish Times)

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)

Above: John McCarthy, Principal Officer of Economic Division at the Department of Finance at yesterday’s technical briefing on the Medium Term Fiscal Statement.

There will be no extra austerity beyond the €3.5 billion already planned for next month’s budget despite a substantial downgrad in the Government’s growth outlook.

In its Medium-Term Fiscal Statement, released by the Department of Finance yesterday, the Government said “all options” were being considered for the budget, including social welfare cuts, a broadening of PRSI and a reduction in the public sector pay bill.

For 2013, the Department of Finance has downgraded its gross domestic product growth forecast by 0.75 of a percentage point to 1.5 per cent, reflecting both sluggish domestic spending and a worrying international economic backdrop.

So, just the social welfare cuts, increased PRSI and public sector pay cuts then.

*Yay*

Budget to bring no further austerity beyond €3.5bn already signalled (Una McCaffrey, Stephen Collins, Simon Carswell, Irish Times)

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

DISABILITY ALLOWANCE payments to under-18s will be ended in the budget if the Government adopts a proposal from the expert group that recommended reducing the rate of child benefit.

The Coalition was forced into a U-turn after last December’s budget when its plan to stop the practice of paying disability allowance directly to 16- and 17-year-olds met strong opposition from the parents of severely disabled children and Opposition parties.

The contentious proposal to increase the minimum qualifying age for the allowance from 16 to 18, while providing a compensatory payment for the teenager’s parent or guardian, is back on the agenda as Budget 2013 approaches.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said the EU-European Central Bank-International Monetary Fund troika has raised concerns about social welfare payments going straight to under-18s and said she was worried about young people losing the incentive to stay in education.

A u-turn on an earlier u-turn.

It’ll be as if nothing had ever happened.

Dail protest in 3…2…

Advisers tell Burton to axe disability allowance for under-18s (Mary Minihan, Irish Times)

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)


Our code monkey Karl has just released a preliminary calculator for Budget 2013.

Sez Karl:

There is already a vague shape to what will be announced in another austerity-laden budget. Joan Burton has been making noises about changing (read: increasing) employee and employer PRSI rates. An increase from the current rate of 4% to 5% would result in an extra €293.96 on the tax bill of someone on the average industrial wage.

Another proposal is that a parent earning over €100,000 would have their child benefit taxed.  At that level of earnings though it makes minimal difference with just €688.80 a year for a single child clawed back. Given that successive governments have failed to implement this don’t hold your breath.

And another big change is the full implementation of the property tax. The rate has yet to be announced, but 0.5% of the property’s value has been mooted by the IMF.  You can be hopelessly optimistic and set the rate at a low of 0.05% (paying €50 per €100K of value) to an eye-watering high of 1% (paying €1,000 per €100K).

As more rumours surface, I will factor in the inevitable misery onto the calculator. Enjoy.

Check you income here: Budget 2013 Calculator