>Workers earning €50,000 in Ireland accounted for 18% of taxpayers, but account for over 75% of income tax paid. Those earning above €100,000 account for 2.2% of taxpayers but account for over 31% of income tax paid.
It’s insane how few people earn over €50,000 a year.
No real surprises in that article. My issue, and I think many would agree, isn’t the amount of tax I pay, its the relatively poor return we get for it. Far too much money is wasted, we could have better services without the need for increased taxes if Government were more efficient and competent.
““relatively low-tax country” … go way to fuck!
What about the cost of living here….housing, insurance, transport, groceries, socialising, holidays.
How about a balanced article that discusses tax rates, cost of living and quality of services.
Solution is simple. Increase the income tax thresholds for the 40% rate and marginally increase the USC at the lowest band.
Low earners pay a fraction of the tax in Ireland that is paid in other countries. This is where the main disparity lies.
Obviously, nobody wants to hear this and it would be too unpopular to address it so they’ll make marginal alterations to the thresholds instead.
[deleted]
The article is fairly simplistic, as it seems to take into account only regular tax. For better comparison, two other elements should be considered:
* PRSI and USC. Focusing only on the tax bands, a person earning 50,000 gross, will show as paying 9,240 in taxes (assuming just salary and no credits other than personal tax credit), so a tax rate of 18.5%. Adding PRSI and USC increases the tax to 12,777, or a text rate of 25.5% tax rate. I’d much rather see a comparison of total tax paid at various income levels. That should make more sense than listing the marginal tax rate per country.
* Employer contributions. I recall seeing that Ireland had the second lowest employer contribution to payroll taxes in the EU, with only Denmark being lower. Social security and healthcare contributions by employers are a major source of direct funding to these two areas, which we don’t have here. The article should have taken that into account.
This is like a child’s view of the tax system. Separate from Income Tax, USC and PRSI, we have an outrageous number of stealth/indirect taxes on almost everything. The actual tax paid by an individual in this country is much more complex to identify. (Which the government love because it makes the problems in our tax system easier to spin)
Is not just income tax though.
One thing people forget is the social contributions that business pay on top of salary. In Ireland it’s very low at 10%. In Europe business can pay up to 30%.
We also get a very poor return for our tax since so much of had to go on servicing debt repayments and other associated costs. The financial crisis hampered Ireland in its development especially with infrastructure.
If you add up all of the taxes paid, middle income earners hand back 50%+ to government. Paye, prsi, usc, vat on goods, road tax, excice duty, carbon taxes, tolls, parking meters, and so on.
We pay far too much in income tax at such a low threshold. The low income earners pay nothing unlike almost every other country and our high rate kicks in too soon. We should have our 20% rate from 10k up to 75k and 30% from 75-100k
In terms of services our civil service is so inefficient and our NGO sector so bloated that I wouldnt trust my tax money to do anything bar pay for roads and gardai
Sorry that was for a different reply. Very political stuff today. We have tried this tax system for a long time and getting nowhere with it. Regressing if anything else. What’s the point in working harder, being innovative and looking for promotions when all you get is a heavier tax burden. Makes no sense. All this tax system does is make levels out of our society that dislike each other.
Amount is irrelevant. What do we get for what we pay would be a much more useful metric.
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>Workers earning €50,000 in Ireland accounted for 18% of taxpayers, but account for over 75% of income tax paid. Those earning above €100,000 account for 2.2% of taxpayers but account for over 31% of income tax paid.
It’s insane how few people earn over €50,000 a year.
No real surprises in that article. My issue, and I think many would agree, isn’t the amount of tax I pay, its the relatively poor return we get for it. Far too much money is wasted, we could have better services without the need for increased taxes if Government were more efficient and competent.
““relatively low-tax country” … go way to fuck!
What about the cost of living here….housing, insurance, transport, groceries, socialising, holidays.
How about a balanced article that discusses tax rates, cost of living and quality of services.
Solution is simple. Increase the income tax thresholds for the 40% rate and marginally increase the USC at the lowest band.
Low earners pay a fraction of the tax in Ireland that is paid in other countries. This is where the main disparity lies.
Obviously, nobody wants to hear this and it would be too unpopular to address it so they’ll make marginal alterations to the thresholds instead.
[deleted]
The article is fairly simplistic, as it seems to take into account only regular tax. For better comparison, two other elements should be considered:
* PRSI and USC. Focusing only on the tax bands, a person earning 50,000 gross, will show as paying 9,240 in taxes (assuming just salary and no credits other than personal tax credit), so a tax rate of 18.5%. Adding PRSI and USC increases the tax to 12,777, or a text rate of 25.5% tax rate. I’d much rather see a comparison of total tax paid at various income levels. That should make more sense than listing the marginal tax rate per country.
* Employer contributions. I recall seeing that Ireland had the second lowest employer contribution to payroll taxes in the EU, with only Denmark being lower. Social security and healthcare contributions by employers are a major source of direct funding to these two areas, which we don’t have here. The article should have taken that into account.
This is like a child’s view of the tax system. Separate from Income Tax, USC and PRSI, we have an outrageous number of stealth/indirect taxes on almost everything. The actual tax paid by an individual in this country is much more complex to identify. (Which the government love because it makes the problems in our tax system easier to spin)
Is not just income tax though.
One thing people forget is the social contributions that business pay on top of salary. In Ireland it’s very low at 10%. In Europe business can pay up to 30%.
We also get a very poor return for our tax since so much of had to go on servicing debt repayments and other associated costs. The financial crisis hampered Ireland in its development especially with infrastructure.
If you add up all of the taxes paid, middle income earners hand back 50%+ to government. Paye, prsi, usc, vat on goods, road tax, excice duty, carbon taxes, tolls, parking meters, and so on.
We pay far too much in income tax at such a low threshold. The low income earners pay nothing unlike almost every other country and our high rate kicks in too soon. We should have our 20% rate from 10k up to 75k and 30% from 75-100k
In terms of services our civil service is so inefficient and our NGO sector so bloated that I wouldnt trust my tax money to do anything bar pay for roads and gardai
Sorry that was for a different reply. Very political stuff today. We have tried this tax system for a long time and getting nowhere with it. Regressing if anything else. What’s the point in working harder, being innovative and looking for promotions when all you get is a heavier tax burden. Makes no sense. All this tax system does is make levels out of our society that dislike each other.
Amount is irrelevant. What do we get for what we pay would be a much more useful metric.