Analysis
Lucinda Creighton: Forget scrapping the USC, it’s the one tax that everyone has to pay
The Universal Social Charge has become a political football with which to beat FG due to absurd promises of abolition, but with middle income workers in Ireland shouldering a far greater burden than in almost any other country in the world – the USC levels the playing field
The Universal Social Charge, or USC, has probably been one of the most controversial tax measures in the history of the State. When it was introduced by then Finance Minister, the late Brian Lenihan in early 2011, it was designed to merge two previous revenue raising measures – the health levy and the income levy. While Lenihan was careful not to explicitly use the word “temporary” in the context of USC, there is no ...
