Budget 2025 will contain 'significant' income tax and USC reduction package
Ine Will Package, 2025 Taoiseach Has Confirmed Budget And Tax The Reduction Usc 'significant' Contain A
Budget 2025 will contain a "significant" income tax and USC reduction package, the Taoiseach has confirmed.
The measures will be part of a €1.4bn tax package, Simon Harris told those in attendance at the Ibec presidential dinner on Thursday evening.
No person earning the average wage should pay the higher rate of income tax, he said of the measures to be announced on October 1.
"As a country we have worked hard to reach full employment, and we want to ensure we make work pay," Mr Harris said.
The USC surcharge on self-employed income is "unfinished business" for Fine Gael and must be abolished.
"This is a vestige of austerity and it must go," the Taoiseach said calling it a "perverse state of affairs" that those who risk the most are penalised the most.
Continuing on a pro-business theme, he referenced a 15-point plan to support business that was published shortly after he became Taoiseach.
Eleven of the points are either completed or underway, he said, with the 12th promised on Budget Day when employers PRSI will be reduced for employees on the minimum wage.
Mr Harris also used his speech to address ongoing discussions around Dublin Aiport.
With a population expected to increase by one million in the next decade, he said it is not realistic to make plans based on a decision framework from a different era.
"I cannot and will not intervene in a planning process, but that constraint should not prevent us from engaging on the solutions to protect connectivity and jobs," Mr Harris said.
"In the time ahead I would like to see Government convene a dialogue with key stakeholders on planning for the future of Dublin Airport and indeed our regional airports."