Passing the Finance Bill through the Dail had been cited as a priority before the election can be called. The bill enacts measures announced in Budget 2025.
It comes as Sinn Féin protested the guillotining of the Bill earlier today.
Finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said it was too important of legislation to be rushed – a claim perhaps illustrated by Finance Minister Jack Chambers asking the Dáil to adopt a preliminary motion correcting a misprint in the Bill as printed.
Mr Doherty said: “In all my time, dealing with 18 different Finance Bills, never has there been a piece of legislation that granted an income tax reduction of €320,000 to an individual.”
He was referring to a pension provision change for super high earners contained in the Bill.
“Your changes to the standard fund threshold – where individuals have golden pots of €2 million – will see people able to avail of a €320,000 tax cut,” he said, through greater provision.
“There are very few people in society that actually benefit from that. Indeed, in relation to the report you published, it suggests that only those in the public sector that earn €170,000 – which would be ministers, Taoisigh, and all the rest – would be in that space.”
Mr Doherty told Mr Chambers: “It is appalling that you have done that, and it’s unlikely that it will get any serious scrutiny” because the Bill was being “rushed,” he said.
There are other issues in terms of the Bill, he said. Section 36 for example, doubled down on the landlord’s credit to the tune of €120 million.
Financial planner Barra Rowntree had called it “the stupidest tax cut ever,” he said. “and there’s stiff competition.”
It was the same with the increase in the threshold for Inheritance tax, Mr Doherty said: “Yet this is what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil does, over and over again, and it’s very clear in this legislation that there are very clear winners.
“There are bits and pieces for others, but those bits and pieces are hundreds of euros here and there. The real winners, and let’s call a spade spade, are the people with more than €2 million of a pension pot.
“They win the lotto on this legislation, they get €320,000 of a tax cut. And the landlords win in this legislation – despite your officials telling you that this will leave half of the landlords in the State paying no tax.”
Other winners were the vulture funds, he claimed. Meanwhile, it came on a day when the Government announced new housing targets “that are abysmally low,” he said.
But Minister Jack Chambers said the Bill was giving effect to the Budget, and proceeded to give examples of “progressive change” in the income tax burden for individuals at different income levels.
