SINN FÉIN will introduce a private member’s motion in the Dáil tomorrow to abolish the universal social charge.
Deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the flat tax charge targets people earning as little as €77 a week and affects someone on an income of €100,000 at the same 7 per cent rate as someone on €16,016.
The Dublin Central TD said the universal social charge breaches the fundamental principle of progressive taxation. She added that those who have more should be obliged to pay more.
The charge was introduced to replace health and income levies. However, Sinn Féin has called for the reinstatement of those levies as an interim measure, and also called for an immediate assessment of the impact of levies.
It is Sinn Féin’s first private member’s motion, a three-hour debate over two evenings. The party argues that the Government should ensure all charges and social insurance contributions “are raised progressively so that those who have the most pay the most”.
Ms McDonald said that “rather than target wealth and ensure that those who could afford to pay more did, Fianna Fáil and the Greens went after those earning as little as €77 a week. Fine Gael and the Labour Party continue to implement this flawed and unfair policy”.
The tax “does not matter a damn” to those on more than €100,000 a year or individuals benefiting from huge tax breaks, she added.
Ms McDonald said the people taking the hit under the universal social charge were the teenagers doing the paper round, the college students in casual jobs and the mothers in part-time work.
“How can this be described as fair?” she asked.
