See full document here.

Various political parties have considered and discussed UBI. Individual politicians have expressed support in one form or another so we are indebted to the Green Party for the publication of their UBI Policy document in October 2019. This marked a significant breakthrough for advocates of UBI. In their document, they specifically referred to social justice and equality as being the basis of their adoption of this policy. However, it is important that we are aware of the details of their proposed implementation of UBI – and arguably, the flaws in their proposal.

Summary & Key Points

The Green Party document defines UBI as “an amount payable to the person who is a permanent resident of the state which enables the person to lead a frugal but dignified lifestyle”. It states that UBI should be paid to all legal residents, with a variable sum for those aged 0-26, fixed for older adults, with a review of payment rates every 5 years. They stated that UBI would replace a number of social welfare payments, and that it should be treated as income for the purposes of calculating tax and for means testing for housing and other benefits. It also urged that the EU should work towards its adoption on a global level.

Whilst deemed as taxable, the Greens policy proposed that taxpayers would have a “tax-free allowance” which would be equivalent to the UBI payment, meaning that no actual income tax would be due on it.

Who Qualifies

The policy document states that UBI would qualify as a Family Benefits under EU Regulations payment. As with other similar payments the benefit is targeted primarily at those persons who are habitually resident in the state. These include:

• Irish nationals resident in the state (and those returning emigrants nationals who can prove intent of habitual residence as per the current HRC1 form)
• UK nationals from the Common Travel Area (CTA)
• EEA nationals who are considered to be resident in the state
• Non-EEA nationals with immigration permission that allows them to legally reside and work in the State. A person with permission to reside will have the appropriate immigration stamp in their passport and a Certificate of Registration issued by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB), an IRP Irish Residence Permit Card
• Asylum seekers who are awaiting a determination from the International Protection office from the date they enter the Asylum system
• Asylum seekers who have been granted permission to remain.

 Levels of UBI Payment

The setting of the level of their proposed UBI payment was to be a “payment, in conjunction with a scheme of top-up payments where appropriate, (which) will cover the majority of current welfare payments and will aim to provide recipients with a basic living wage lifting a significant proportion of the current 15.7% of the population estimated to be ‘at risk of living in poverty’ out of that state”.

Referring to specific figures of median disposable income and 60% risk of poverty threshold, they proposed a weekly payment of €215.15 or €11,188 per annum. Lower rates would apply to young adults. As noted earlier, they proposed that the rate of UBI be subject to review and adjustment every 5 years.

Pilot

The policy proposed a pilot of their costed model – with the cost of rates of UBI “being no more than the funding raised to pay for it”. It is not clear to me what they had in mind here. They also refer to proposing “a trial study of UBI”, picking “a discrete geographical area such as Achill Island for a 2 year period”.

Cost of UBI

The Green Party policy proposes:

• Payment of the UBI at rates that vary by age of recipient
• Replacement of tax credits with a tax-free allowance equivalent to the value of the UBI payment
• Removal of 20% tax rate to all income tax payers, ie. a flat 40% tax rate applicable
• Replacement of specific social welfare payments, including Job Seekers Allowance with top-ups in recipients of Carer’s Allowance and Domiciliary Care Allowance. A “clawback” figure is calculated regarding the cost of existing benefits that would be replaced by UBI.

Using 2019 rates of payment of a max of €203 per week, their model calculates a nett cost of UBI to the State as being €6.5bn. They propose to meet this cost by means of new taxes such as:

• Site Value Tax of 5% – estimated to raise €5bn
• Speculative transaction tax of 0.15% on betting, share and currency trades – estimated to raise €1bn
• Pension fund levy, similar to that implemented in 2014 for a number of years (now discontinued) estimated to yield €0.7bn
• Increase in Stamp Duty of 4% on non-principal private residences – estimated to raise €0.4bn.

They submit that these new taxes would be “more than enough to fund UBI”.