Cash for kids
Income tax bands will be raised sharply to prune €1.6 billion from payslip deductions, particularly for workers earning less than €44,000 a year, in a system that already taxes lower-paid workers little by international norms.
Chambers said the changes would mean workers earning less than €20,000 would pay no income tax at all.
Simultaneously, the national minimum wage will be hiked by 6 percent to €13.50 an hour, or €27,400 a year for a fulltime worker — the second-highest in the EU behind Luxembourg.
To soften the blow from Ireland’s EU-leading property prices and rents, tax write-offs on rent payments will be increased, while two programs for subsidizing the eye-watering price tag of property will be extended.
The budget for the state’s Land Development Agency will be raised 25 percent to €6.25 billion to boost supply in a market where private developers complain costs are already too high to build apartments at affordable prices.
Chambers said Ireland would spend €3 billion more than previously planned on infrastructure projects in 2025. This would be financed not by the Apple back taxes but a different windfall: the sale of shares in Ireland’s second-largest bank, AIB, following its state bailout and nationalization in 2010.
Chambers said the sovereign wealth funds — one earmarked for infrastructure, the other for environmental projects — would grow to more than €16 billion next year, much of it coming from Apple. “Protecting and nurturing” these investment reserves would be essential to secure Ireland in what he called “a more shock-prone world.”
“While we cannot prevent external shocks,” he said, “we can ensure we are on the best possible footing when they do occur.”