Gavin Reilly Is Wrong About Carbon Taxes
Gavin Reilly is wrong about carbon tax. It can be lowered if the regressive rebate scheme is shelved. Furthermore, Spain and Poland have gone ahead and lowered VAT in conflict with EU law and have so far gotten away with it, so could the carbon tax be shelved as well too?
The recent protests over fuel prices have led to all sorts of sensationalism, exaggeration and lies. Emblematic of this issue is a post by journalist Gavin Reilly suggesting that the government cannot abolish carbon tax, nor can it reduce it further. The post by Gavin quickly went viral on Reddit:
Gavin O Reilly explaining why the government is restricted.
by u/Fiannafailcanvasser in irishpolitics
In the post Gavin states clearly that the minimum EU rate of excise duty is 33 cents per liter on diesel.
As of 25th of March the “excise duty” on diesel in Ireland is 26.3c and carbon tax is 19c. So why can we not remove the carbon tax? Carbon tax and “excise duty” are both included together when considering the EU minimum, yet that is still about 12c above the minimum of 33c. The rebate scheme that Gavin mentions is 12 cents per litre which means that if carbon tax was completely cut then excise duty would effectively be below 33c. There are two things to point out here: firstly this scheme has several exceptions, and it is much more difficult for small farmers and businesses to benefit from this scheme.
So can carbon tax be lowered contrary to what Gavin has stated? If the rebate scheme which is a regressive scheme that favours the wealthy were shelved it could be lowered to about 7c within the context of EU law.
FACT CHECK: FALSE
Gavin Reilly is wrong about carbon tax. It can be lowered if the rebate scheme is shelved. Furthermore, Spain and Poland have gone ahead and lowered VAT in conflict with EU law and have so far gotten away with it, so could the carbon tax be shelved as well too?
