A site valuation tax and water rates, agreed by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party in the renewed Programme for Government, will not be introduced in the “short term” the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said today.
Mr Ahern also said the abolition of the PRSI ceiling for employees is “a budgetary issue” and “may not happen this year”.
A carbon tax which has already been earmarked is expected to be introduced with the budget.
The Green Party decisively endorsed the revised Programme for Government over the weekend. At the conclusion of its day-long special convention at the RDS on Saturday, the party announced that 84 per cent of over 600 delegates had backed the programme, agreed between Fianna Fáil and the Greens late on Friday night.
The main taxation measures proposed in the programme include a single rate of tax relief on private pension contributions, a “site valuation tax”, the abolition of the Pay-Related Social Insurance (PRSI) ceiling, the introduction of water charges and a carbon tax in the 2010 budget.
At the end of last month, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said he was not planning to raise taxes in December's budget for 2010, apart from the introduction of the carbon tax, a long-held target of the Green Party.
However, speaking on the Pat Kenny radio show today Mr Ahern defended the Minister saying that at the time he was only referring to personal taxes.
Mr Ahern added that the new measures had to be done in the “overall context of the difficult financial situation we find ourselves in”.
He also said that any new spending had to be found from “within existing resources”.
