asked the Minister for Finance the estimated annual cost of increasing the income tax allowance to widows by 20 per cent.
Written Answers. - Income Tax.
365.
If the current income tax personal allowance to widowed persons (including widows) were increased by 20 per cent, the cost to the Exchequer would be of the order of £3 million in a full year.
If the one parent family allowance, in so far as it applies to widowed persons, were increased by 20 per cent, the cost in a full year would be approximately £0.1 million.
366.
asked the Minister for Finance the percentage increase in the income tax child allowance since the budget of 1976 and the percentage increase in the cost of living since that date.
The main income tax child allowance was £240 in 1976-77 and is at present £218, a decrease of 9.2 per cent. The Deputy will recall that in the 1979 Budget I announced that a priority would be given to social welfare children's allowances and that the resources available would be directed to needy families in the lower and middle income groups. This was achieved by introducing a special allowance of £250 for single parents with dependent children, by increasing the expenditure on social welfare children's allowances by some 28 per cent and by reducing the income tax child allowance by 9.2 per cent. Families not liable to tax thus received the full benefit of the increase in social welfare children's allowances and for those paying income tax the benefit was greater the lower they were on the income tax scale.
The consumer price index rose by 50.4 per cent between mid-February 1976 and mid-August 1979.
367.
asked the Minister for Finance the annual cost of increasing the dependent child tax allowance by 30 per cent in respect of widows.
If the current income tax child allowance to widowed persons (including widows) were increased by 30 per cent the cost to the Exchequer would be of the order of £0.4 million in a full year.
If the one parent family allowance, in so far as it applies to widowed persons, were increased by 30 per cent the cost, in a full year, would be in the region of £0.2 million.
368.
asked the Minister for Finance the date of the Government's decision to tax short term social welfare benefits payable to widows, the date of implementation of this decision and the estimated yield from this tax.
Presumably the Deputy has in mind the provisions of section 11 of the Finance Act, 1979, which enacted that certain specified short-term social welfare benefits (unemployment benefit, disability benefit, and so on) are to be treated as income for tax purposes. The Government announced in their Programme for National Development 1978-81 in January 1979 that these benefits would be taken into account from the earliest practicable date in assessing tax liability. The legislation referred to takes effect for the income tax year 1980-81 and subsequent years. The yield from this measure was estimated at £13 million per annum. Statistics are not available which would enable an estimate to be made of the yield from the taxing of the benefits in so far as they are payable to widows.