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PROMOTE SMALL & LOCAL BUSINESSES
Small businesses are drowning in a sea of regulation, with complex reporting requirements, and unending state interference. We will review EU directives to simplify compliance and prioritise the SME sector over the multinational corporates. We will defend the use of cash and resist mandatory digital currencies. The rates burden on small business needs to be reduced and VAT rates simplified.
Irish Freedom Party's
Small Business Policies:
We believe that it is necessary for the Government to prioritise measures to help our home-grown enterprises to grow and prosper. Ireland is home to approximately 250,000 Irish Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) employing nearly a million people. These enterprises are essential to a sustainable economy and must be supported. Even limited support to these enterprises can have a huge impact on local employment.
â–ª We will re-introduce transparency and accuracy in food labelling. In order to support SME’s in the food sector we will mandate that products claiming to be ‘Irish’ are indeed Irish and that labelling is not merely used to hoodwink those consumers who seek to buy Irish. Food products imported from outside the EU will require prominent labelling of the fact. It will be insufficient for food products to be labelled as originating in the ‘EU’. The country of origin must be identified.
â–ª We will abolish tax on stock options at companies that are younger than 10 years, have fewer than 50 employees and revenue and a balance sheet of less than €8m. Such a policy is already in operation in Sweden and has already been approved by the European Commission.
â–ª We will increase the lifetime limit on gains from the disposal of businesses from €1m to €15m. Entrepreneurs will pay a reduced rate of CGT (10%) on all gains made up to the lifetime limit of €15m. The relief will be available to all those who own a minimum of 1% of a business.
â–ª We will introduce a nationwide relief scheme to reduce commercial rates for struggling businesses. We believe that town centres should be the commercial, 24 cultural and civic heart of every community. We will support town centre regeneration by rebalancing rates for retailers based within the town so that they are not put an economic disadvantage. We will task our proposed Commission on the Future of Taxation and Welfare to recommend a new system to better fund local government in Ireland.
â–ª We will reform the National Training Fund so that a minimum of 55% of spending is dedicated to ‘In Employment’ activities where the employers who pay for it can access the fund for the benefit of their workers.
â–ª We will abolish the ‘Low Pay Commission’. We will link any further minimum wage increases to 3-year average inflation. We will also defend the “ability to pay” clause for employers.
â–ª We will reduce the rate of Employer’s PRSI on a graduated basis for those earning less than €380 per week to 4.25%.