yes i get all that, im talking about earnings not salaries , i may have used the word "salaries" but i mean earnings, it does change my key point , the difference between cso figures and revenue hard data. From 2017 revenue data , there are 2.5 million tax payers in ireland and we have 2.2 million workers, therefore only 300,000 extra people pay tax that are not workers. That is still only 12% of the total revenue data so not going to move the dial that much.The CSO does not report "average salaries" - it reports average earnings.
Somebody could be on 40k basic salary, but earn 48kk when overtime, bonuses, are included.
Also note that income tax payers includes many people who do not work.
There may be 2.2m people at work, but there may be 3m people in the income tax system.
The key point is that only 21% of those 2.5 million tax payers pay tax at the higher rate, so therefore 79% of earners earn less than 36,000 euros