Up to 90 people claimed tax reliefs totalling almost €10 million for multi-storey car-parks, according to figures released by the Minister for Finance.
The statistics show that the 90 people claimed an average of €100,000 each in tax relief. A study conducted by the Revenue Commissioners of the effective tax rate of the top 400 earners in the State showed that nine partnerships were involved in multi-storey car-parks and they generated total losses of €9,725,723 in 1999/2000.
The Minister, Mr McCreevy, pointed out that while the Revenue study was conducted last year, it referred to data from the 1999/2000 tax year. The highest amount of tax loss relief claimed by any one of the nine car-park partnerships was €2,576,719.
Mr McCreevy, in a written reply to a Dáil question, said the top tax rate in 1999/2000 was 46 per cent. He informed Labour's finance spokeswoman, Ms Joan Burton, that a similar study Revenue carried out in 1997 concluded that the use of capital allowances was one of the main methods of reducing tax bills of high earners to very low levels.