Fianna Fáil insisted today that there are major policy differences between itself and Fine Gael, claiming the opposition party's tax policy gives the highest benefit to higher earners.
Fine Gael immediately rejected as "desperate lies" the Fianna Fáil claims and said its tax policies would benefit every tax payer "and Fianna Fáil knows it".
Speaking in Dublin, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said Fianna Fáil's policy had withstood all scrutiny and would deliver significantly lower taxes for average earners.
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen
Mr Cowen said his party's policies would benefit 97 per cent of taxpayers and that Fine Gael's would only benefit 3 per cent of taxpayers. The assertion was rejected by Fine Gael's finance spokesman Richard Bruton as "a deep and cynical lie".
"There is just one category of one income category of one-income couple who get more under Fine Gael and Labour than under Fianna Fáil, and that's about 71,000 families earning more than €60,000 a year," Mr Cowen said.
Other beneficiaries of the Fine Gael plan were single people, earning more than €250,000 a year and married couples earning more than €500,000 a year, he said.
"There are 2.2 million income earners in the country; 38 per cent of them don't pay tax. The remainder, all of the remainder with the the exception of [those three categories] do better under the Fianna Fáil tax package than under the Fine Gael/Labour package. That's an arithmetical fact."
The Minister said that as the election campaign had progressed, it had become "clearer and clear to the public that there is a real choice being offered to them".
"This is a choice between soundbites and substance. We have not attempted to match the opposition in the scale of their promises, but we have shown that ours can be implemented in a five-year term and can deliver real social and economic progress," he said.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton
But Fine Gael deputy leader and finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the Fine Gael tax plan helps "100 per cent of taxpayers in Ireland and Fianna Fail knows it".
"In the final days of their dying government, they have moved from misrepresentations to outright lies about our policies. The Irish people deserve honesty and hope from their government, not lies and fear - and that's what they'll get on Thursday when they elect a Fine Gael - Labour government."
Speaking at a joint Fine Gael/Labour press conference this afternoon, Mr Bruton said Fianna Fáil's claims about his party's tax policies were "entirely bogus". They did not take account, for example, of the fact that Fine Gael proposed to reform the stamp duty regime which was currently responsible for some people paying the value of their entire annual salary when buying a home.
Mr Bruton said a standard rate tax cut from 20 per cent to 18 per cent would benefit every taxpayer.
On reform of the social insurance fund, Mr Bruton also rejected Fianna Fáil's argument that those earning high salaries would pay the same as low-income earners under Fine Gael's plan.
"It is inherent in a social insurance fund that you are contributing more when you are strong than when you are weak," he said, asking why Fianna Fáil had decided to reform the social insurance regime after 10 years in Government.