The annual pantomime presented by the Department of Finance went off as expected, with little or no surprises. At this stage Budget Day has really passed its sell by date. Everything is now leaked in advance and little or no details are contained in the speech or in the budget documents. The Minister spoke for 77 minutes yesterday and his speech contained relatively little that we didn’t already know about. The Finance Bill is due to be released on the 18^th of October and this is where the real information is contained. However from a tax point of view, there may not be much contained in this either. The ratio of spending to tax cuts was 11:1 which is highly unusual. This budget was one where tax took a back seat and unfortunately businesses took a back seat also, with little or nothing in it for the benefit of the SME sector.

Of course there has been some minor tax measures included in the budget and we will take you through these measures in this publication.  We hope you get some value from this briefing and as ever if you have any questions regarding how the budget affects you, please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and ask.

There has been a number of very small improvements to the income tax regime which will help everyone, albeit in a minimal way. The USC rate on earnings between €19,874 to €70,044 has gone from 4.75% to 4.5%. A saving of €125 per year or €2.40 a week. The standard income tax band has increased by €750 to €35,300. This has a saving of €150 per year for those earning above €35,300. This is the equivalent of €2.88 per week. Therefore total income tax savings per week is at €5.28 per week which is effectively the price of a pint in Cork City centre.

While a lot of the budget speech was taken up by the housing crisis and a number of important measures have been introduced, none of these will help the rental market in the short term.

While it was some bit of a surprise that carbon tax wasn’t increased in this budget, I don’t think the abolition of the 9% tax rate for the tourism industry came as a surprise. This has been flagged for years now and eventually the government decided that this industry has had enough favourable treatment. It’s a shame really for those outside the big cities as those are the ones who really need it.

As mentioned at the outset there was little or nothing for the SME sector in this budget. Why does the government continue to treat this sector as second class citizens? These are the people who create employment and are the same people who won’t leave the country if policy changes. The changes that did come were in the main, negative for small businesses.

There was very little in this budget. Almost nothing positive for businesses. This was a shame and we are still holding out for some changes to be introduced in the Finance Bill due out next Thursday. A point was made that the government doesn’t want to give the parties on the left ammunition on Budget Day and that’s why business taxes were ignored in the hope that they might sneak in some benefits in the Finance Bill. I think that’s wishful thinking.