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TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has said changes to inheritance tax “deserve to be considered” in the run up to October’s budget.
Under the current rules, children are able to inherit €335,000 from their parents before they have to pay tax at 33%.
However, those in Fine Gael, such as Minister of State for financial services Neale Richmond, have argued for reforms and have highlighted that 13 years ago, a person could inherit €542,544 or be gifted that amount before paying tax at 22%.
When asked by The Journal today whether October’s budget will see changes to the tax, Harris said:
“I do think inheritance tax is a legitimate point for consideration in the budget because obviously it has a real impact on a son or daughter, nephew or niece trying to basically move into the family home.
“At a time when we’re trying to come up with a wide variety of housing solutions I do think we do need to be mindful of the fact that house prices have risen and inheritance tax hasn’t.”
With a €1.4 billion tax package announced as part of the Summer Economic Statement, Harris said there is a “limited pot” to play with.
He added that the issues around “unfairnesses” and “anomalies” with inheritance tax, as well as issues around inheriting farms needs to be considered.
He said the “overriding focus” within the tax package will be on income tax.
His comments come after Tánaiste Micheál Martin said last week that inheritance tax “is hitting ordinary people”.
“It can create real difficulties for people in terms of if they’re inheriting their parents house and remember, the parents would have paid their tax throughout their lives,” he said.
Two years ago, there was outrage among those in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over the Commission on Taxation report recommending the tax-free threshold for inheritance tax should be lowered rather than increased.
Such a suggestion was batted away by Martin at the time, with the Tánaiste stating that he would have concerns about saying to people “‘you’ve worked all your life, you’ve bought your house, but no, actually, we want to take more off you when you die. And you can’t leave it to your family members’”.
Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also hit out at the report, stating that some of the recommendations were “straight out of the Sinn Féin manifesto”.
A Department of Finance document prepared ahead of last year’s budget found that increasing the amount before the tax kicks in to €340,000 would cost €5 million, while increasing it to €400,000 would cost in the region of €52 million.
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So they did well at local and European elections, but that doesn’t be the same for general election. The arrogance grows strong as Yoda would say.
@John John: 62 days and he is still counting
@Mick McGuinness: winners are entitled to be arrogant, Shinners however, lol
@Mick McGuinness: Just like in 2019, FF/FG won 52% of the seats in the local elections, in the general election that followed FF and FG lost so much ground from the previous years local elections that they had to form a coalition for thge first time in their history, sworn enemies, so on that basis you definitely cannot take anything for granted in politics.
People should not waste their votes, the turnout at these elections was abysmal.
@Duffman: winners? FG and FF had a poorer showing in these local elections compared to 2019. Whereas SF increased their seats compared to 2019.
@Ian: Yes, Mary Lou was absolutely delighted with the result yesterday – “It has not been our day but we will have our day … we clearly have lessons to learn”. You need to compare this result with expectation, not with the abysmal showing of SF back in 2019.
@SYaxJ2Ts: There’s an easy metric: did David Cullinane shout ‘Up the Ra!’ at any point?
If not, SF’s showing was poor.
@Ian: still more than SF, granted numbers are not the Shinners strong point lol
This will come back to bite them, they should take advantage now of the voter apathy.
Patriots on here gone EXTREMELY quiet who kept repeating how they and everyone were going to vote for Ireland First / Führer Party / white Nationalism party / Irish people because something got to do with their failed referendums and migration. Well “mass immigration” FFG will romp home at the GE. The far-right no-seats parties have gone VERY quiet on their socials as they didn’t win a seat.
@9QRixo8H: You could almost hear a pin drop they’re gone that quiet. Meanwhile, over on the cesspit that is The Gript, the comments sections are hilarious! They’re crying foul and rigged elections hahahaha those people are utterly deluded.
@Ian: the ethnoNational party in total got 0.3%. The Führer party got 0.5%. Ireland First got 0.2%. Imagine that! Yet going by the comments on here they were due to get 110%. So much for the “openborders” the “unvetted” and “mass immigration” blah blah blah. The führer is dead.
@9QRixo8H: Well they did win a few seats and, more importantly, ate into SF support. All but guaranteeing two things. Another FF/FG led government and and the continued rise of the far right. FF/FG have willingly allowed the far right to grow to keep themselves in power and undermine SF. Just another example of irreparable damage they’ve done to this country.
@Gareth: ‘FF/FG have willingly allowed the far right to grow’???? How could they stop haters and racists from being haters and racists?
If the far right have taken votes from SF, it just goes to show that SF wasn’t really the left-wing party it claimed to be: it was far too reliant on the easy pleasures and prejudices of nationalism.
@Gareth: the top performing Far Right party got 0.5%. Hardly ate into SF or FFG’s support.
@9QRixo8H: brilliant piece of work by Simon Harris removing asylum seekers from ipo and canal area then sending 50 of them back to ni then cutting their money everyone fell for it his far right stance won the day
How come 26 EU countries, most of which held elections after us on Friday have their results done and dusted?
What is the hold up with Irish results?
Simon has the bit in his mouth now lol.
I really hope they do, could be the biggest blindside ever
We won’t go into power with fg we won’t call an early election
have your say