Is there up to date information on the per cent of income taxes paid by those earning over €70,000?

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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There used to be data which showed that the top 10% of earners paid 30% of all taxes.

Is this still published? Any good analysis of it anywhere?

Brendan
 
According to the Irish Tax Institute, the top 9% of income earners pay 54% of all income tax and USC.

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This, from Ronan Lyons, is a little out of date but excellent as it takes all income into account.
 
Please note that you appear to be referring to income tax alone, rather than all taxes.

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This estimates the total taxes paid across all deciles.
 
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Sarenco said:
According to the Irish Tax Institute, the top 9% of income earners pay 54% of all income tax and USC.
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From looking at the Revenue data for 2017

The top 10% (roughly) earn 37% of the income and pay 60% of the total tax.
The bottom 10%
 
Hi Protocol

It's income taxes and USC.

PRSI is supposedly a social insurance. You pay a premium and you get a pay related benefit when you claim.

Brendan
 
Purple said:
This, from Ronan Lyons, is a little out of date but excellent as it takes all income into account.
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I think Ronan's observation is interesting that our taxation system is simultaneously excessively progressive (in the sense that high earners pay a disproportionately high level of income tax/USC) and excessively regressive (in the sense that low earners pay a disproportionately high proportion of their income on VAT).

I suppose that feeds into an argument that middle income families actually get a particularly good deal under our tax/welfare system.

Protocol said:
Please note that you appear to be referring to income tax alone, rather than all taxes.

[broken link removed]

This estimates the total taxes paid across all deciles.
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I would treat any research that emanates from the Nevin Institute with extreme caution.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I have also found this published by Revenue for 2017
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Interesting....(If I am reading this correctly!)
The two groups that pay the most in taxes are those earning between 100k-150k and those earning more than 275k. As the asterix notes, those jointly elected are counted as one, and given the large number of those earning between 100k-150k (102,241) I would think that this group is made up largely of jointly assessed couples. These couples could very well have individual salaries of 55k and still end up in this group....ie a lot of couples in here could very well be the "squeezed middle" and are paying the most in taxes (along with those earning 275k+)
 
Purple said:
Big +1 to that. They are the (mis)information department of the Trade Union movement.
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There was a brief discussion on Prime Time on tax last Monday week, first RTE had an ICTU funded TASC economist (Nat O'Connor), then for a bit of balance they'd an ICTU funded NERI economist (Michael Collins), both with the same view - essentially "isn't tax great - we should have more of it". I'd wondered why ICTU had two "think" tanks, now I'm impressed with their pre-budget media manipulation.
 
ashambles said:
There was a brief discussion on Prime Time on tax last Monday week, first RTE had an ICTU funded TASC economist (Nat O'Connor), then for a bit of balance they'd an ICTU funded NERI economist (Michael Collins), both with the same view - essentially "isn't tax great - we should have more of it". I'd wondered why ICTU had two "think" tanks, now I'm impressed with their pre-budget media manipulation.
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Don't forget that just about everyone in RTE is also a member of an ICTU Union.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
PRSI is supposedly a social insurance. You pay a premium and you get a pay related benefit when you claim.
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I realise you said supposedly, but despite the name PRSI has to be considered a tax, and as a consequence we don't really have social insurance.

This is the IMF view.
IMF said:
Note 8 page 37 from the IMF
The Irish welfare system does not differentiate significantly between social insurance and social assistance, or
between contributory and non-contributory state pensions. Accordingly, PRSI contributions do not bear a strong
link to welfare benefits, so that it is acceptable to combine (employee) PRSI with income tax and USC when
looking at personal income taxation in Ireland
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There's a extremely weak relationship between what is paid in to what is paid out. For example jobseeker's benefit pays out 9 months if you've 5 years payments made, i.e a 50k worker would have paid 10k euro in PRSI (30k including employers) and get out around 7k in "support".

The amount paid in is not capped, the amount paid out is capped. It's not widely known, but Irish high earners due to this lack of a cap pay far more in social insurance than their higher paid counterparts in countries with enviable social systems, and they can expect nothing from it since a means tested version of the contributory pension is not unthinkable.
 
Sarenco said:
I would treat any research that emanates from the Nevin Institute with extreme caution.
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While clearly the NERI is a socialist-supporting organisation, I would not doubt the facts/data used by Micheal Collins.

If you can show that any of the data he used is wrong, please go ahead.


PS I am not a supporter of NERI.
 
ashambles said:
first RTE had an ICTU funded TASC economist (Nat O'Connor).
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To be fair, TASC doesn't appear to be ICTU funded and I think they do produce thought provoking research -

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The Nevin Institute on the other hand ...:eek:
 
Protocol said:
If you can show that any of the data he used is wrong, please go ahead.
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It's not data but on that Prime Time program I mentioned there was some discussion of whether income tax should be brought in at lower levels - much like it is in countries like Sweden.

Collins literally laughed this off by saying the low paid have so little income that such a tax wouldn't generate worthwhile revenue.

A nice bit of misinformation since in fact around 2m taxpayers (not just low earners) would pay income tax at that level and it would generate large and reliable revenue.
 
ashambles said:
A nice bit of misinformation since in fact around 2m taxpayers (not just low earners) would pay income tax at that level and it would generate large and reliable revenue.
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Are you sure?

Would they not just quit working and go on the dole?

Ideologically, I agree that the lower paid should pay more tax. But with such generous social welfare payments, it wouldn't work in Ireland, unless...

Brendan
 
Charging more income tax on lower earners might be possible here, if the price level fell.

Our labour costs are similar to Germany, yet our prices are 20% higher.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Are you sure?

Would they not just quit working and go on the dole?

Ideologically, I agree that the lower paid should pay more tax. But with such generous social welfare payments, it wouldn't work in Ireland, unless...
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Nobody would deliberately stymie their own career and go on the dole solely for the sake of say €500-€1,000 a year in income tax.

When I was a trainee acccountant in the late 80s I earned approx £60 per week and paid a few pounds in tax every week. It didn't do me any harm.
 
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