Finally, a budget day to look forward to – especially for the self-employed

In recent years, budget week has been a downer, but things are starting to look up again.

The Irish Tax Institute said the country can expect tax cuts of between €600 million and €750 million tomorrow. This is based on the Government's Spring Economic Statement which said there would be between €1.2 billion and €1.5 billion available for combined tax reductions and investment in public services, and repeated confirmations the total adjustment would be split 50:50 between tax cuts and expenditure increases.

With exchequer net receipts for the first eight months of 2015 almost €1.4 billion ahead of target, it appears likely expansionary measures will be closer to the upper limit of €1.5 billion.

Self-employed people and farmers are expected to get a tax break worth €1,650 over the next five years, and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has also confirmed that the very unloved Universal Social Charge (USC) will be cut by at least 1 percentage point.

Also, the USC paid by the self-employed is expected to be brought more in line with that of PAYE workers. As it stands, there is a USC disparity of 3 percentage points between the employed and self-employed for income over €100,000.

Innovators

Also tomorrrow, up to 500 people are set to descend on the Mansion House in Dublin for Social Entrepreneurs Ireland’s annual event.

There will be a budget giveaway of a different kind for the day that’s in it, with nine social innovators being awarded €600,000 in development funding at the event.