True, but as a result of high taxes we have a thriving economy. Access to incredible public services (see the train from Dublin City to Dublin Airport for example), affordable medical care for all, a world class children’s hospital, low numbers of homeless citizens….
Oh wait…. Hang on….
It’s bike sheds. We only have expensive bike sheds.
Hmm…while I absolutely agree that the tax burden on middle income earners is ridiculous, I don’t understand the obsession with low income earners not paying taxes. Pointing down at the poor instead of up is just disgusting…..
I wouldn’t mind paying higher tax if we were getting value for money in terms of infrastructure and public services.
However in Ireland we most certainly aren’t, so you’re left wondering where our taxes are actually going?
It’s like those Scandinavian high-tax social democrat systems… except in Ireland, you don’t get anything in exchange.
Yeah, it’s great when I get my bonus in work and I have to share over half of it with the Revenue.
[deleted]
Property tax is minuscule in this country. Which I find really strange. Like a tv tax isn’t a whole lot less for some, and that’s for the tv but the house.
Our corporate tax rate is very low though.
Of course. We refuse to tax wealth (including property) in any meaningful way, leaving the tax burden on wage earners.
A meaningful property tax would allow us better services without income tax rises
I’d seriously question reports from US based tax lobbyists.
I moved to the Netherlands, make more money, pay about 2/3 as much in taxes, have better access to healthcare (albeit still not great), much cheaper childcare, and I don’t even need to pay for a car. Ireland was a ripoff.
The other side of this coin is that we go bananas any time the tax base is expanded. The troika wanted us to introduce things like property tax and water charges specifically to get us off being hooked on a few tax headers. We had a rare bout of actual street protests about water charges and the property tax has basically been eroded in real terms to be something of a fraction of a percent of state income.
You can complain all you want about value for money in what the state spends, but as DOGE sort of showed in the US it really is hard to just magic up loads of “efficiency savings”. So the only other way to reduce the tax burden (rather than spread it around to other types of taxes) is to make specific suggestions about which expenditures you’ll cut.
Then run for office on that platform and watch yourself attract votes in the hundreds.
This is the actual study. Scroll halfway down the page for the listed ranking
I firmly believe we have zero hope of good services for the taxes we pay. I could never see it happening without structural reform of our entire political system.
As a result the only thing that matters to me from political parties is tax cuts. It’s the only way to benefit the tax payer.
Tax bases is far to Narrow
I’ve long argued and been shouted down by my peers.
Welfare should be treated as income and the appropriate rate of tax employed.
So if you have a couple on benefits with kids getting a figure totally €50k per year. This €50k should be treated like a self employed person’s income.
“Worst” is a strange way to frame the fact that we have a progressive tax system but what would you expect from a right wing American think tank.
Change needed now!
Them bike sheds aren’t paying themselves
Glad the article/report calls out our punishing taxation on investments. The way we treat investment income in this country disincentivises personal investment. So the only way people can invest is through property, adding to our dysfunctional property market. We need to do a 180 on our attitude to investment income, over correct the mistake & promote responsible investments (ETF’s etc) in this country. If a property is both one family’s home & another family’s pension, bad things happen.
We pay tax on the shit we own that we paid tax on when we bought it. Then pay tax on whatever we need to keep that shit running. Then we pay tax on the money that we earned that we need to pay tax on the shit that we allready paid tax for.
Did any of the commenters read the article. This is from a us based group and two of their biggest gripes are the high tax on dividends and the fact that a lot of workers are exempt from income tax because of the tax credits.
The only valid point in there is that the top rate of tax kicks in below the average wage.
Don’t really expect much better from the Indo but this is drivel. It doesn’t give any actual comparisons of how much tax a typical worker pays in different countries. Just a scoring system from some American lobby group.
Someone tried to argue in this sub the other day that FFG are centre right.
In most countries, they would be considered left. We don’t really have any mainstream right-wing parties in Ireland. I mean, these riots are literally about how welcoming and generous we have been to asylum seekers.
Hugely progressive and redistributive income tax system, high rates of CGT, high rates of inheritance tax, LPT, deemed disposal, no taxes for the bottom 1/3 of workers, HAP, generous social welfare system, children’s allowance with no cap on number of children, medical cards, huge numbers of asylum seekers welcome (look at how Australia treats asylum seekers for comparison), extremely soft on crime, pro equality, pro choice… all signs of a left-wing government.
They are pro-business, which makes them centre left, not completely left.
Eastern block looking suspicious paying 40% on the minimum wage that is worth a week’s wages in Ireland.
Good fucking Christ. You lot losing your shit because some USAmerican conservative think tank comes up with some sort of bs about our tax system.
I’ve worked this sort of thing out before by comparing with Finland due to its similar population and they being one of these shining light Nordic type countries and Ireland being shit.
>Individual tax rates aren’t great for comparison.
>But looking at the totals as per the OECD is worthwhile considering the similar population.
>Off the back of a GDP of €237bn, in 2020 Finland took in total taxes of €99.53bn. That’s just shy of 42%. Ireland’s GNI (because GDP is useless for Ireland apparently) is €283bn. Ireland total tax take is €75.3bn, 26.6% of GNI.
>On individuals, Finlands income tax total was €29.9. Social insurance was €27.3. Total €75.2, and being 31.7% of GDP.
>Ireland’s income tax total was €23.7, social insurance €12.8, total €36.5, 12.9% of GNI.
>In sum, Ireland = low tax economy, Finland = high tax economy.
>I include social insurance because the employer’s part is literally a tax on jobs. If it’s high, wages are lower, if it’s low, wages are higher.
Granted that’s a bit out of date by now but it illustrates the point that we are far from being a high tax economy.
I was confused at the headline and it become very clear why after a paragraph.
“dividend income from shares are so highly taxed.
Our system sees most of the income tax paid by middle and higher earners, as most low-income earners are exempt.”
I don’t know much about the policies of US-based Tax Foundations but I assume most r/ireland commenters wouldn’t be keen on them. I think they are arguing for less tax for high earners, more tax for low earners and probably less money spent on services / health care etc.
The headline is bollocks. Being ranked at the bottom of a list by this right wing think tank isn’t a bad thing
I would expect it to be very low since we don’t waste money on a large military
Pay high tax and get little to nothing for it. Goverment budgets are bloated and out of control. Infrastructure that can only be built after decades of review and a welfare system that encourages people not to work.
Well yeah… we get more than 1/2 of our income taken before many of us even have enough to pay our mortgages…. The tax brackets are absolutely fucked. There should be a 25% bracket for everything up to like 100k and then make over 100k 40% plus the EU taxes.
Similar tax levels to South Korea but they have a massive military spend and we have bike sheds.
What a weird report. They assess the components of a country’s tax system according to two measures:
1. How much revenue does it bring in? (less is better)
2. How similar is it to Estonia?* (more similar is better)
That’s it, pretty much.
So, unless I’m mistaken, a country that follows the former Zimbabwe Model, simply printing all the money it needs, would get the highest possible score. Very competitive.
—
* Because Estonia happens to adhere to the tax policies they favour.
The key term there is income tax.
There are loaded people here sitting on loads of assets paying no tax. Whereas the working person shoulders most of the burden.
John magnier for example owns 9500 acres of land in this country. He gets 300,000 euros in government subsidies for that land. **Why?!?**
We could also just stop with the stupid tax cuts for the private sector like the VAT cut for hospitality.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, John Malone, The Duke of Devonshire etc all hold massive land holdings in Ireland and are not really pay much tax, if any, on it. Tax them and cut income tax.
Its not like most of these people contribute to the Irish economy. You think Sheik Mohammed is spending the money from his Irish assets locally?
Tax is nuts.
I know it’s “oh it’s taxed on the more you earn”
But fuck me. It’s a bit much isn’t it?
But at least we’ve councils digging up and tarmacing perfectly good roads just to spend their budget so they don’t get less next year . I was working in town a few years ago, I went to a flat complex on my lunch and got chatting to the bloke making my sandwich . I said its fairly quiet around here ? He replied, that the council are doing up the flats but they’ve been earmarked to get demolished in 3 years’ time for regeneration . He said they’re spending 3 million to do so. He lived there and even he thought it was stupid .
If we knew our taxes were being adequately spent I wouldn’t have much of an issue. Sort out housing, homelessness and the healthcare sector…but no money goes into white elephants aka the Children’s Hospital
34 comments
True, but as a result of high taxes we have a thriving economy. Access to incredible public services (see the train from Dublin City to Dublin Airport for example), affordable medical care for all, a world class children’s hospital, low numbers of homeless citizens….
Oh wait…. Hang on….
It’s bike sheds. We only have expensive bike sheds.
Hmm…while I absolutely agree that the tax burden on middle income earners is ridiculous, I don’t understand the obsession with low income earners not paying taxes. Pointing down at the poor instead of up is just disgusting…..
I wouldn’t mind paying higher tax if we were getting value for money in terms of infrastructure and public services.
However in Ireland we most certainly aren’t, so you’re left wondering where our taxes are actually going?
It’s like those Scandinavian high-tax social democrat systems… except in Ireland, you don’t get anything in exchange.
Yeah, it’s great when I get my bonus in work and I have to share over half of it with the Revenue.
[deleted]
Property tax is minuscule in this country. Which I find really strange. Like a tv tax isn’t a whole lot less for some, and that’s for the tv but the house.
Our corporate tax rate is very low though.
Of course. We refuse to tax wealth (including property) in any meaningful way, leaving the tax burden on wage earners.
A meaningful property tax would allow us better services without income tax rises
I’d seriously question reports from US based tax lobbyists.
I moved to the Netherlands, make more money, pay about 2/3 as much in taxes, have better access to healthcare (albeit still not great), much cheaper childcare, and I don’t even need to pay for a car. Ireland was a ripoff.
The other side of this coin is that we go bananas any time the tax base is expanded. The troika wanted us to introduce things like property tax and water charges specifically to get us off being hooked on a few tax headers. We had a rare bout of actual street protests about water charges and the property tax has basically been eroded in real terms to be something of a fraction of a percent of state income.
You can complain all you want about value for money in what the state spends, but as DOGE sort of showed in the US it really is hard to just magic up loads of “efficiency savings”. So the only other way to reduce the tax burden (rather than spread it around to other types of taxes) is to make specific suggestions about which expenditures you’ll cut.
Then run for office on that platform and watch yourself attract votes in the hundreds.
This is the actual study. Scroll halfway down the page for the listed ranking
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/global/2025-international-tax-competitiveness-index/
I firmly believe we have zero hope of good services for the taxes we pay. I could never see it happening without structural reform of our entire political system.
As a result the only thing that matters to me from political parties is tax cuts. It’s the only way to benefit the tax payer.
Tax bases is far to Narrow
I’ve long argued and been shouted down by my peers.
Welfare should be treated as income and the appropriate rate of tax employed.
So if you have a couple on benefits with kids getting a figure totally €50k per year. This €50k should be treated like a self employed person’s income.
“Worst” is a strange way to frame the fact that we have a progressive tax system but what would you expect from a right wing American think tank.
Change needed now!
Them bike sheds aren’t paying themselves
Glad the article/report calls out our punishing taxation on investments. The way we treat investment income in this country disincentivises personal investment. So the only way people can invest is through property, adding to our dysfunctional property market. We need to do a 180 on our attitude to investment income, over correct the mistake & promote responsible investments (ETF’s etc) in this country. If a property is both one family’s home & another family’s pension, bad things happen.
We pay tax on the shit we own that we paid tax on when we bought it. Then pay tax on whatever we need to keep that shit running. Then we pay tax on the money that we earned that we need to pay tax on the shit that we allready paid tax for.
Did any of the commenters read the article. This is from a us based group and two of their biggest gripes are the high tax on dividends and the fact that a lot of workers are exempt from income tax because of the tax credits.
The only valid point in there is that the top rate of tax kicks in below the average wage.
Don’t really expect much better from the Indo but this is drivel. It doesn’t give any actual comparisons of how much tax a typical worker pays in different countries. Just a scoring system from some American lobby group.
Someone tried to argue in this sub the other day that FFG are centre right.
In most countries, they would be considered left. We don’t really have any mainstream right-wing parties in Ireland. I mean, these riots are literally about how welcoming and generous we have been to asylum seekers.
Hugely progressive and redistributive income tax system, high rates of CGT, high rates of inheritance tax, LPT, deemed disposal, no taxes for the bottom 1/3 of workers, HAP, generous social welfare system, children’s allowance with no cap on number of children, medical cards, huge numbers of asylum seekers welcome (look at how Australia treats asylum seekers for comparison), extremely soft on crime, pro equality, pro choice… all signs of a left-wing government.
They are pro-business, which makes them centre left, not completely left.
Eastern block looking suspicious paying 40% on the minimum wage that is worth a week’s wages in Ireland.
Good fucking Christ. You lot losing your shit because some USAmerican conservative think tank comes up with some sort of bs about our tax system.
I’ve worked this sort of thing out before by comparing with Finland due to its similar population and they being one of these shining light Nordic type countries and Ireland being shit.
>Individual tax rates aren’t great for comparison.
>But looking at the totals as per the OECD is worthwhile considering the similar population.
>Off the back of a GDP of €237bn, in 2020 Finland took in total taxes of €99.53bn. That’s just shy of 42%. Ireland’s GNI (because GDP is useless for Ireland apparently) is €283bn. Ireland total tax take is €75.3bn, 26.6% of GNI.
>On individuals, Finlands income tax total was €29.9. Social insurance was €27.3. Total €75.2, and being 31.7% of GDP.
>Ireland’s income tax total was €23.7, social insurance €12.8, total €36.5, 12.9% of GNI.
>In sum, Ireland = low tax economy, Finland = high tax economy.
>I include social insurance because the employer’s part is literally a tax on jobs. If it’s high, wages are lower, if it’s low, wages are higher.
Granted that’s a bit out of date by now but it illustrates the point that we are far from being a high tax economy.
I was confused at the headline and it become very clear why after a paragraph.
“dividend income from shares are so highly taxed.
Our system sees most of the income tax paid by middle and higher earners, as most low-income earners are exempt.”
I don’t know much about the policies of US-based Tax Foundations but I assume most r/ireland commenters wouldn’t be keen on them. I think they are arguing for less tax for high earners, more tax for low earners and probably less money spent on services / health care etc.
The headline is bollocks. Being ranked at the bottom of a list by this right wing think tank isn’t a bad thing
I would expect it to be very low since we don’t waste money on a large military
Pay high tax and get little to nothing for it. Goverment budgets are bloated and out of control. Infrastructure that can only be built after decades of review and a welfare system that encourages people not to work.
Well yeah… we get more than 1/2 of our income taken before many of us even have enough to pay our mortgages…. The tax brackets are absolutely fucked. There should be a 25% bracket for everything up to like 100k and then make over 100k 40% plus the EU taxes.
Similar tax levels to South Korea but they have a massive military spend and we have bike sheds.
What a weird report. They assess the components of a country’s tax system according to two measures:
1. How much revenue does it bring in? (less is better)
2. How similar is it to Estonia?* (more similar is better)
That’s it, pretty much.
So, unless I’m mistaken, a country that follows the former Zimbabwe Model, simply printing all the money it needs, would get the highest possible score. Very competitive.
—
* Because Estonia happens to adhere to the tax policies they favour.
The key term there is income tax.
There are loaded people here sitting on loads of assets paying no tax. Whereas the working person shoulders most of the burden.
John magnier for example owns 9500 acres of land in this country. He gets 300,000 euros in government subsidies for that land. **Why?!?**
We could also just stop with the stupid tax cuts for the private sector like the VAT cut for hospitality.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, John Malone, The Duke of Devonshire etc all hold massive land holdings in Ireland and are not really pay much tax, if any, on it. Tax them and cut income tax.
Its not like most of these people contribute to the Irish economy. You think Sheik Mohammed is spending the money from his Irish assets locally?
Tax is nuts.
I know it’s “oh it’s taxed on the more you earn”
But fuck me. It’s a bit much isn’t it?
But at least we’ve councils digging up and tarmacing perfectly good roads just to spend their budget so they don’t get less next year . I was working in town a few years ago, I went to a flat complex on my lunch and got chatting to the bloke making my sandwich . I said its fairly quiet around here ? He replied, that the council are doing up the flats but they’ve been earmarked to get demolished in 3 years’ time for regeneration . He said they’re spending 3 million to do so. He lived there and even he thought it was stupid .
If we knew our taxes were being adequately spent I wouldn’t have much of an issue. Sort out housing, homelessness and the healthcare sector…but no money goes into white elephants aka the Children’s Hospital
Comments are closed.