| tax 2002-12-17 |
| A recently released study undertaken by Ireland's Revenue Commissioners has revealed that around one in five of the Republic's top earners pay no tax at all, and that the vast majority of the country's high net worth earners make use of schemes, shelters and partnerships to reduce their liability considerably.
Reports this week revealed that over the 1999-2000 period, 63% of Ireland's top 117 earners had an effective tax rate of less than 10%, with property-based capital allowances for multi-storey car parks and hotels, and other incentives such as film relief and loan interest cropping up as the most popular shelters. However, in his last budget, Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy announced that the multi-storey car park and several other property reliefs would end on December 31, 2004, a new factor which led the Revenue Commissioners to conclude in their report that: 'A repeat of this study in two or three years will give a better indication of what reliefs are being used to reduce the effective rate by the very wealthy.' |