The Workers Party have said that if reports into the likely proposals of the Commission of Taxation which are due to be published shortly are any way accurate the Commission has failed utterly to look at the taxation of wealth and those who have the greatest amount of it.

Workers Party President Michael Finnegan condemned the proposals which have already been leaked to the media as another attack on working class people and the most vulnerable groups in society.

“If these reports on the content of the Commission on Taxation’s reports are to believed the Commission is proposing to totally ignore the massive wealth held by a small section of the population and instead once again hit ordinary working people and their families who have already suffered disproportionately as the results of cutbacks and have been unfairly targeted for the meanest of cuts by the McCarthy Report.

“The Workers Party is totally opposed to any imposition of water taxes or the return of domestic rates which are nothing less than stealth taxes against families who are already struggling and many of whom are deep in debt to the very same banks whose salvation has been put before the good of the people and the country.   Any move to tax or means test child benefit will also be resisted strenulously and the government is putting itself on an unprecedented collision course with the workers of this country if it proceeds with this and the McCarthy report”, said Mr. Finnegan..

The Workers’ Party President said that issues such as the totally inadequate level of corporation taxes for big business and multinationals and of a wealth tax for the super rich were central to the creation of a fairer taxation regime for this country.   “Ignoring this vast accumulation of the product of pure greed while attacking ordinary workers and their families is totally unacceptable and it is incumbent on socialists and the trade union movement to now raise a crescendo of protest that will not be silenced by token concessions.  The Workers’ Party will certainly be fighting these proposals tooth and nail over the coming weeks and months”, he said.

Issued 21st August 2009