ESRI: No rationale for any tax cuts in budget

A leading economic think-tank has said next month’s budget should contain no tax cuts and only focus on expenditure measures that can “improve the potential growth of the economy”.

While only around €300m of the proposed €1bn budgetary package is expected to cover tax cuts, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has called for a “neutral” budget, or one that neither contracts nor stimulates the economy.

It said there is “no great rationale” for tax cuts and that it is important to maintain income tax as a significant portion of tax revenues, adding that the economy does not need to be further stimulated.