LEGISLATION THAT WOULD allow each taxpayer to receive an annual statement which would detail how much tax they paid and where it is being spent by the government will be debated in the Dáil today.
Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy is hopeful that some form of his idea could be operational at least online by next year with his Tax Transparency Bill 2012 having the backing of the government.
It will be debated at second stage this morning where it is anticipated that it will be passed to then go before the Oireachtas finance committee.
The finance spokespersons of Sinn Féin and Fianna Fail are expected to speak in the Dáil today while Finance Minister Michael Noonan could also be in attendance to speak about the bill.
Murphy, a Dublin South-East deputy, told TheJournal.ie this morning that he was hopeful that some form of his idea would be in operation by next year.
He said that while his preference would be that every taxpayer would get a statement of their tax paid and where it was spent by the government through their letterbox he recognised there was a cost and “this might not be the time for it”.
“The online aspect of it is quite a simple thing to do actually,” he said.
“It’s just a couple of lines of code put online and it wouldn’t be expensive. People could then go along and see the tax they pay themselves and how it is spent.”
On his website, Murphy lays out the details of an example using a fictional person, Ms Duffy.
She earns €42,000 per year gross and is a PAYE worker in the private sector who receives basic tax credits and standard bands of tax:
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