A think tank has said that as the state's finances are underway to restoration and now that public sector pay restoration is underway, it is only right that tax restoration gets started.
Hibernia Forum, which adopts a right of centre approach, published its proposals for Budget 2018 today.
The Forum said that if income taxes were to be reduced by the same amount of money raised by the USC - nearly €4 billion a year - it would allow for a reduction of four percentage points in both the higher and lower rates of income tax.
"Hibernia Forum prefers to achieve tax restoration through a reduction in tax rates rather than USC abolition because we wish to retain the broadening of the tax base achieved by the USC," the think tank said.
It said that government revenues from income taxes - including the USC - are now almost 50% higher than at the end of the economic boom in 2007. But, VAT receipts remain below their 2007 levels.
"It has been the state's income tax payers who have borne the brunt of rescuing the state's finances," the think tank said.
The Forum has also proposed that health spending per head in Ireland should be reduced to the European average over the next 10 years.
It noted Eurostat figures which showed that Ireland spent €4,147 per person on health in 2014, more than in Germany which has a much older population and more than the Spanish per capita spend of €2,034.
Only the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Luxembourg spend more on health than Ireland.
It said that the reduced spending could be realised through the abolition of the HSE and with it, the "over management" of the system.
It also proposed the competition of the Hospital Group scheme and with that the introduction of competition for funding through a massive expansion of the National Treatment Purchase Fund instead of the block grant funding model.
