The Labour Party said today the Minister for Finance must raise the standard rate tax band and impose higher taxes on the super rich to ensure a "fair" budget.
Among Labour's seven "minimum demands" for Budget 2006 are the indexation of the standard rate tax band by 15 per cent, a cap on doctors' fees and a minimum effective tax rate on high income earners.
"Funding is not the issue in this Budget. Fairness is," the party's leader Pat Rabbitte said.
"The Minister for Finance has unprecedented funds available to him. He should use that money to make a real positive impact on the lives of ordinary people," Mr Rabbitte added.
Labour's tax proposals for taxing the wealthy are similar to the Alternative Minimum Tax introduced in the US in the 1970s, which operates in parallel with the conventional tax system to prevent very high incomes from using special tax benefits to pay little or no tax.
"Bulging Government coffers are of no use if our economic prosperity is not used to make a better quality of life for our people - for parents, for people who need health care, for school children and students, for the old and vulnerable," Mr Rabbitte added.
Labour's other measures include doubling the fuel allowance for pensioners, reform of the rent allowance, doubling school capitation grants and introducing paid parental leave.