But I agree that everyone should pay a reasonable amount.
THAT'S my point
But I agree that everyone should pay a reasonable amount.
That would be ideal but it's not going to happen. It's too late at this stage to have just one tax rate. Bringing in one tax rate is only going to benefit high-earners no matter what way you look at it.
I wasn't talking about who it would benefit, but rather talking about a 'fair' solution - though I do agree with you - I can't see it happening in Ireland.
Fair enough. If something was introduced which hit low earners harder than high earners as blatantly as a flat tax rate, there would be riots on the streets.
Well, Joe Duffy's phone lines would be jammed to incapacity anyway!
I don't think a totally flat tax would be fair or workable. You could maybe have one low flat tax (but tax nonetheless on ALL income, including pensions and social welfare which might be paid net) up to the level of a living wage and above that a single higher flat tax (to encompass prsi, health levies, income levies) so that everyone kept the same proportion of the fruits of their efforts once a minimum living wage had been reached.
I don't think a totally flat tax would be fair or workable. You could maybe have one low flat tax (but tax nonetheless on ALL income, including pensions and social welfare which might be paid net) up to the level of a living wage and above that a single higher flat tax (to encompass prsi, health levies, income levies) so that everyone kept the same proportion of the fruits of their efforts once a minimum living wage had been reached.
Flat rate is the way to go.
Income tax target from 2010 Book of Estimates = 11,979m
Average Wage Q1 2010 (CSO) = 35,634 per annum
No. of tax payers in country (Revenue Annual Report) = 2,496,762
Doing the maths, it means that if we had a flat rate tax, the 2010 rate would be: 13.5%
Whats encouraging is that we can easily increase our tax take by 25-30% (i.e. to c.18% flat rate tax) without much difficulty.
The other thing, is that if this flat rate of tax were to replace all the other taxes such as prisi, income levy etc, our "low tax economy" mightn't look so low after all
But look at it this way. 13.5% tax takes in 12bn, we have a shortfall of 20bn, so we will have to increase income tax to 30% to balance the books.