Income tax should be increased for top earners and stamp duty revenue split between central and local government, according to a nearly completed review of Sinn Féin's economic policies.
Under the changes, those earning more than €100,000 a year would face a 50 per cent tax rate, while capital gains tax would also rise - but not by as much as the party has demanded previously.
The review of the party's economic policies, led by Sinn Féin's national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin and former general secretary Robbie Smyth, has been under way for over a year.
An enterprise policy document recommending that corporation tax be raised to 17.5 per cent is expected to be concluded tomorrow and launched later this month, The Irish Times understands.
Significant tax breaks should be offered to Irish-owned firms if they invest in research and development, in remote regions and in environmentally sustainable industries, it advocates.
Recommending an increase in corporation taxes from 12 per cent to 17.5 per cent, the Sinn Féin expert group argues that low business taxes have done little to spur the growth of Irish companies.
The State should not become over-reliant on foreign investment which increases vulnerability to a global economic downturn, and should offer Irish-owned firms the same tax breaks as those enjoyed by foreign investors, the group believes.
Stamp duties raised from house sales should be split between central and local government in a bid to deal with local government's inability to generate sufficient local taxation.
Councillors should have the power to set stamp duty rates, which rise to 9 per cent on houses worth more than €635,000, in their own local authority areas, the group argues.
Capital gains tax should rise from its existing 20 per cent rate, though the Sinn Féin group will argue that it should not return to the 40 per cent rate that existed before Charlie McCreevy's cuts.
"A final figure has not been agreed," said one source close to the deliberations. The proposals will have to be accepted by a party ardfheis if they are to become official policy. Demands for increased business taxes will guarantee business opposition, particularly after Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams told the Dublin Chamber of Commerce last year that Sinn Féin had "no plans" to increase such taxes.
However, the Sinn Féin group is to recommend that employers' PRSI should not be increased back to 12 per cent - a move that, if implemented, would cost industry up to €500 million annually. Though final work on a taxation document is not completed, the committee has examined the possibility of levying capital gains taxes on the sale of family homes, in a bid to dampen down house price inflation.
