{"id":220055,"date":"2025-12-07T11:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/220055\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:46:14","slug":"one-in-three-income-earners-in-ireland-dont-pay-tax-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/220055\/","title":{"rendered":"One in three income earners in Ireland don\u2019t pay tax \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lopsided nature of Ireland\u2019s income tax<\/a> base was laid bare in a Department of Finance<\/a> report this week. <\/p>\n

It noted that the top 10 per cent of income earners here now generate 40 per cent of income tax receipts and 60 per cent of USC<\/a> (universal social charge) contributions. <\/p>\n

The converse is that earners in the bottom 50 per cent of the income distribution generate just 10 per cent of income tax receipts and 5 per cent of USC contributions.<\/p>\n

Even more striking, approximately one-third of all income earners \u2013 equating to 1.2 million tax units (which can be an individual or a couple) \u2013 are effectively outside of the income tax net courtesy of the State\u2019s generous system of tax credits.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering income tax is the State\u2019s largest source of tax receipts, the heavy reliance on so few payers leaves the public finances vulnerable to any shifts in the economic cycle,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

This concentration risk is in part the same as the risk that exists in the State\u2019s corporation tax base where just 10 companies are responsible for 60 per cent of the total receipts. That\u2019s because many of the top income earners work for the big US multinationals which pay the lion\u2019s share of corporation tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese same multinationals are, themselves, likely to be disproportionately impacted by any further deterioration in the global trading environment,\u201d the report says. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs such, in the event of a shock to one or more of these sectors, the contagion effect of these interlinkages risks the development of a \u2018snowballing\u2019 deterioration in both corporation tax and income tax,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

The narrowness of Ireland\u2019s tax base has been highlighted for several years including in a high-profile report by the Commission on Taxation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The reports are piling up in the department but there has been little or no movement to address the problem. The inertia is undoubtedly a product of the ongoing tax bonanza which has allowed the Government avoid making hard decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lopsided nature of Ireland\u2019s income tax base was laid bare in a Department of Finance report this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,2355,118924,22779,18,19,5233,17,1900,4520,14084],"class_list":{"0":"post-220055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cantillon","10":"tag-commission-on-taxation-and-welfare","11":"tag-department-of-finance","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-income-tax","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-revenue-commissioners","17":"tag-tax","18":"tag-usc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115678123434447246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}