Budget 2018 highlights

Minister for Finance & Public Expenditure, Pascal Donohoe announced his first Budget this afternoon. He noted that “Commencement notices for new housing are up 47%,” and commented that planning permissions were up 49% this year. Notable aspects from a Housing perspective include:

• Allocating €1.83bn for housing in 2018 – 3,800 new social homes will be built by local authorities.
• The Housing Assistance Payment scheme will be increased by €149 million.
• Extra €500 million for the direct building programme.
• Up to €750 million of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund will be made available for commercial investment in housing finance. The funds are to be made available to a new vehicle to be known as Home Building Finance Ireland or HBFI.
• The level of stamp duty on commercial property transactions will increase from 2% to 6% from midnight tonight.
• He confirmed the State would launch a Brexit loan scheme for SMEs. 
• Up to €300 million will be made available at a competitive rate.

Tax and USC:

• The 2.5% rate of USC will reduce to 2% and its ceiling will rise from €18,772 to €19,372.
• The next rate up reduces from 5% to 4.75%.
• Income tax bands – the first higher band is increasing from €33,800 to €34,550.
• The top rate of tax moves up to 48.75% on income up to €70,044.

Self-employed:

• He announced a ‘Keep Employee Engagement Programme (KEEP)’ which could assist in retaining staff with an advantageous tax treatment of share options.

Full details of Budget 2018 are available in the Budget Statement.