BUDGET 2016 – THE MAIN POINTS
THE BIG STUFF
CIGARETTES – A pack of 20 cigarettes will now cost €10.50, a 50 cent increase from midnight tonight.
FUEL ALLOWANCE – Fuel allowance to increase by 2.50 a week to 22.50
CHRISTMAS BONUS – The welfare christmas bonus cut by previous government, restored to 25 per cent last year will be 75 per cent this year.
OLD AGE PENSIONS – All pension payments to go up 3 euro a week from January 1, first increase since 2009.
CHILD BENEFIT – Child Benefit to go up by 5 euro to 140 euro next year
MINIMUM WAGE – The Minimum wage is being increased from €8.65 an hour to €9.15 from January 1st.
PATERNITY LEAVE – Paid paternity leave of two weeks for fathers from September next year.
VAT – 9 per cent VAT rate remains on hospitality sector, but warns case for hotel sector is Dublin is diminishing
GP CARE – GP care to be extended to under 12’s next year (subject to negotiation with doctor representatives)
RESPITE CARE GRANT – Respite Care Grant value restored in full to 1,700 euro.
TIMELINE
15.38 – OVERSEAS AID – Budget of 640 million euro in 2016 for official development assistance such as fighting global hunger and poverty
15.38 – EMERGENCY AEROMEDICAL SERVICE – The Emergency Aeromedical Service to be put on a permanent footing
15.37 – GARDAI – Extra 600 Gardai to be recruited in 2016
15.37 – 2016 – Extra 50 million euro for an extensive range of events and initiatives to commemorate 2016
15.37 – HOUSING – Extra 69 million to allow local authorities secure accomodation for extra 14,000 households
15.36 – HEALTH – Health budget of 13.2 billion next year “restores resourcing og health to pre-crisis levels”
15.34 – FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT – Threshold for supplement increases by 5 euro per week for families with one child, 10 euro per week for those with 2 or more children
15.29 – PUPIL TEACHER RATIO – Pupil teacher ratio will go from 28:1 to 27:1 at primary and from 19:1 to 18.7:1 at second level
15.28 – TEACHERS – 2,260 new teachers in 2016, including 600 new resource teachers
15.25 – AFTERSCHOOL – 3 million being provided to develop afterschool in school buildings
15.24 – CHILDCARE – 8,000 childcare places to support parents in low paid employment
15.24 – FREE PRESCHOOL – All children to avail of free preschool/childcare from age 3 to 5 and a half or when they start primary school
15.06 – HOUSING – NAMA to deliver 20,000 residential homes by 2020 – 90 per cent of these in Dublin at cost of 4.5 billion
15.05 – KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT BOX – Plans to introduce first OECD compliant KDB in the world and income that qualifies will be subject to reduced corporation tax rate of 6.25 per cent
15.04 – FILM RELIEF – Increasing the film tax credit cap on eligible expenditure to 70 million
15.01 – HAULIERS – Commercial motor tax rates to be cut with 20 rates being replaced by 5 ranging from 92 to 900 euro (current max is 5,195 euro)
15.01 – DEBIT/ATM CARDS – 5 per cent stamp duty on debit and atm cards to go and be replaced with a 12 cent per ATM transaction fee (to encourage more payments by card)
15.00 – CARD FEES – Cuts in charges to businesses who accept debit card payments, saving these businesses 36 million a year, warns must be passed onto consumers in lower prices
14.58 – AGRI FOOD – Extension of the general stock relief, stock relief for young farmers and stamp duty exemption for young trained farmers to be extended to end 2018 (further 3 years)
14.54 – CAPITAL GAINS TAX – New capital gains tax rate of 20 percent for people who dispose of all or part of a business up to limit of 1 million
14.54 – SELF EMPLOYED – New Earned Income Tax Credit to the value of 550 for self-employed with no access to PAYE credit, to be increased further in future budgets if resources permit
14.51 – BANK LEVY – Bank levy to be extended to 2021 to bring an extra 750 million to exchequer
14.50 – PENSION FUND LEVY – Remaining 0.15 per cent pension fund levy will end this year and will not be applied in 2016
14.50 – LOCAL PROPERTY TAX – Postponing the local property tax revaluation date from 2016 to 2019
14.49 – CAPITAL ACQUISITION TAX – Increasing threshold for Group A (transfers between parents and children) from 225,000 to 280,000
14.48 – EMPLOYER PRSI – Increasing entry point to the top rate of 10.75 by 20 euro per week to 376 euro a week.
14.48 – MINIMUM WAGE – Tapered PRSI tax credit for low paid workers to counter any change to tax on earning more
14.47 – HOME CARER TAX CREDIT – Increase to the home carer tax credit of 190 euro bringing it to 1,000
14.45 – UNIVERSAL SOCIAL CHARGE
– From January 1, USC entry threshold increases from 12,012 euro to 13,000.
– Around 42,500 workers will be removed from paying USC completely.
– USC Rates to be cut from 1.5 per cent to 1 per cent, from 3.5 per cent to 3 per cent, from 7 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
– USC changes bring marginal tax rate to 49.5 per cent for all earners under 70,044 euro.
14.37 – Budget 2016 will reduce the headline deficit to 1.2 per cent of GDP and reduce debt to under 93 per cent of GDP – the eurozone average
14.37 – Predicting unemployment will fall to 8 per cent by the end of 2016 and to 6.25 per cent by 2021
14.35 – Forecasting growth in 2015 of 6.2 percent and growth in 2016 of 4.3 percent
14.35 – NOONAN: Top priority of budget is to keep recovery going, the recovery is not complete
14.34 – A minute’s silence has been held in the Dáil for those who died in a fire in Carrickmines on Saturday, and Garda Tony Golden who was shot dead in the line of duty on Sunday night.
14.26 – We’ll find out very soon exactly what Budget 2016 will mean for us although theres not expected to be any major surprises announced by the Ministers this afternoon.
14.25 – Finance Minister Michael Noonan will take to his feet in the Dail in the next few minutes to unveil the details of Budget 2016.
