SMEs not among parties’ priorities but progress promised

The good news for self-employed business owners now that polling day has arrived is that all parties have committed to addressing the imbalance between PAYE and non-PAYE workers with Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and Renua adopting the strongest stances.

One area the outgoing government began to address at the end of its term was the issue of capital gains tax which was lowered from 33% to 20% on the disposal of business assets in the last budget.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have pledged to bring Ireland into line with the UK by cutting the rate to 10%, while Labour would move to 15% and Renua has adopted a tiered approach; taxing the disposal of assets from a business at rates of between 10% and 20% for “productive businesses” based on the length of time the investment has been made.