The Irish Freedom Party believes that Irish workers are over-taxed and that we need to reward work and enterprise better. We believe in a progressive tax system rewarding work, initiative and merit. We want to put more money in your pocket to give you the freedom to spend it as you wish. We will implement policies to reduce and remove punitive austerity taxes, USC, PRSI, Property and Carbon taxes, that ultimately increase costs on citizens, families and SMEs.

In economic terms, the Laffer Curve shows counter to intuition, in the long-term; the lower the rate of taxation, the higher the tax take by the state. Lower tax rates put money into the hands of taxpayers, who then spend it. It creates more business activity to meet consumer demand. For this, companies hire more workers, who then spend their additional income. This boost to economic growth generates a larger tax base. This was the lived experience of Ireland in the late 1990s and early 2000s (before cheap euro credit and cheap labour gave us a building boom and bust).

There is still a problem that many of Ireland’s highest earners are either not obliged or fail to declare much of their income for tax in Ireland. This matter should also be dealt with by bringing in greater penalties for non-declaration of taxable income.