FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has ruled out the introduction of a wealth tax, claiming that families with an income of more than €100,000 a year are struggling to make ends meet.
Responding to People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett’s calls to introduce a wealth tax on incomes over €100,000, the Limerick Minister said households with such an income were not wealthy.
Speaking in the Dáil last week Minister Noonan added: “They’re barely getting the kids up in the morning and out to school, paying the bills, paying the mortgage, and keeping the car on the road. And if you think a gross income for a couple at €100,000 is wealth, you’re not meeting the real people.”
However, Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea noted that families earning €100,000 a year are “a hell of a lot more wealthy than families with an income of €20,000, who the Government has hit repeatedly”.
He told Limerick Post: “If you take a young person aged 25 or 26, before the payments were cut their total income was about €9,500 a year, now, depending on their age category it’s gone underneath that.
“Let’s face it, everything is relative, but people on over €100,000 have suffered a lot less under this Government than people earning a lot less. All independent commentators have said that our budgets are regressive and that they are taking more from the poor than from the wealthy.”
