Readers like you keep news free for everyone.
More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.
For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.
# Returns
Exchequer figures shows income taxes up €607 million
The Social Welfare budget has an under spend of €182 million, while the Health budget is over.
EXCHEQUER RETURNS SHOWS that the tax take is ahead of the November target by more than €600 million.
Year on year, Income taxes were up by €607 million or 4.4 per cent, VAT is up 2.8 per cent and Corporation Tax is up 3.5 per cent.
Property tax
The figures show that the government has now collected €287 million in local property taxes, well ahead of the €250 million expected in Budget 2013.
These figures are some of the most important exchequer figures to be released in the year, as the Government usually base their Budget estimates on it and they also take in self employed returns who have filed their returns the month previous.
The figures have been welcomed by the Government showing that they are taking in more tax than expected and spending less than they thought.
Social Welfare
The Social Welfare budget has an under spend of €182 million, which coincides with last week’s figures that more people were in paid employment and the fall in the numbers on the Live Register.
The figures shows that so far, €287 million has been collected this year from the Local Property Tax, which is ahead of what the Government had hoped for in Budget 2013, at €250 million.
While there is an under spend in the Social Protection budget, the exchequer figures show there is an overspend in the Health budget of 0.4 per cent.
Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan stated the returns are a “key indicator of the health of the Irish economy. The strong performance set out in today’s figures is hard evidence that the recovery seen in the high frequency data is taking hold across the economy”.
He added:
As we exit the EU/IMF bailout programme on the 15 December and make a full return to the markets, the fact that the public finance are under control and the tax base is growing builds confidence in Ireland at home and abroad.
Read: Pay-and-file tax deadline won’t change next year, 2015 date could be earlier though>
Read: Here’s how much extra tax the government expects to take next year>
