More than 100 of the State's top earners used property-based tax breaks to avoid paying an average of more than €200,000 each in tax, according to an analysis of a new Revenue Commissioners' study of high earners. Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports
The study shows that 29 of these people paid no tax at all in 2001. All 115 of them appear to have earned more than €500,000, but paid tax at an effective rate of less than 30 per cent in that year. They claimed tax relief of €42 million on property investments in that tax year.
Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton yesterday pointed out that the study "shows no reduction in the numbers paying no tax at all". In both 1999/2000 and in 2001, 29 top earners paid no tax.
The 2001 tax year was nine months long, meaning the property relief would have amounted to €57 million in a full year, Ms Burton said. So each of these 115 claimed relief on an average of just under €500,000 in the 2001 calendar year. With this relief being given at the marginal rate of 42 per cent, they would thus have avoided paying over €200,000 each that would otherwise have been due in tax.
The figures emerged yesterday from the third study carried out by the Revenue Commissioners of the effective tax rates of the 400 highest earners in the State.
The study excludes tax-free income earned by artists, stallion owners and those earning money from patents.
According to the Revenue Commissioners, the number of high-earning taxpayers with an effective tax rate of less than 15 per cent decreased modestly between the 1999-2000 tax year and the 2001 tax year. Those with an effective tax rate of between 15 per cent and 29 per cent increased modestly.