Chamber briefing on budget

FIANNA Fáil ministers have been behind every national budget since 1996 but the run will be broken on December 6.
Michael Noonan will then announce yet another hairshirt budget and the following morning, Shannon Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual budget breakfast briefing at the Bunratty Castle Hotel.
Indications are that many existing tax reliefs will be severely curtailed as the Government seeks to raise significant tax revenue without increasing the headline income tax rates.
At the briefing, Grant Thornton, in association with the chamber, will give details of the impact of the Budget from a tax and wider economic perspective.
Topics to be covered will include the impact of anticipated tax changes for both companies and individuals, an update on the post-Budget pensions landscape and tax planning potential for 2012 and beyond.
Leslie Barrett will be a speaker at the event. He is a tax partner with Grant Thornton, having joined them in 2004 from a Big Four firm where he was a tax director. A member of the Irish Taxation Institute, he specialises in tax planning and VAT advice for both Irish and international corporates and their executives.
The second speaker will be Eamonn Murphy, a tax director with Grant Thornton since 2005. He trained in the tax department of a Dublin-based Big Four firm and is now a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, the Irish Taxation Institute and is also a qualified financial advisor. He has extensive experience on tax planning issues for high net worth individuals, group restructurings and VAT. He serves on a number of accountancy and solicitors practices in the Mid-West on various technical tax matters.