Forty-three people who earned over €1 million in 2002 paid less than 5 per cent tax on their income, the latest figures from the Revenue Commissioners have indicated.
The figures, which show a marked increase in the level of tax avoidance by the super-rich, also indicate that six people who earned more than €1 million paid no tax.
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen announced separately yesterday that he had signed orders phasing out seven property-based tax incentives that the Revenue reports are the main reliefs claimed by those paying the lowest tax.
The revelations prompted renewed calls yesterday for a fundamental review of income-tax reliefs, which Opposition parties claimed would continue to provide generous breaks for at least another 10 years.
The latest report on the tax rate of the top 400 earners in the State for 2002 showed that, as a group, they paid an effective tax rate of 24.4 per cent - less than the 28.9 per cent average in 2001.
The Revenue Commissioners had hailed 2001's "upward movement in effective [ tax] rates" as indicating that "measures such as the capping of capital allowances available to passive investors continued to take hold".
The number of top earners paying a tax rate of less than 30 per cent rose in 2002, from 115 to 150.
The Irish Times has established from previously published figures that the top 400 earners in 2002 all received €1 million or more.
The breakdown of the figures showed that six people in the top 400 earners paid no tax in 2002, compared to five in the previous year.
The number paying an effective rate of between zero and 5 per cent rose from 25 to 37 taxpayers, the number paying between 5 and 10 per cent tax rose from 15 to 23. Overall, the number of the 400 paying an effective tax rate of 20 per cent or less rose from 75 to 95.
The figures did not include the zero per cent tax break for music royalties and artistic income.
The report said the main reliefs claimed by the 150 individuals paying less than 30 per cent were property-based incentives, such as the rural renewal, hotel and car-park schemes. Many of the reliefs, which have cost in the region of €3 billion, were criticised as being of limited economic benefit in a report for the Department of Finance by Indecon economic consultants.
Mr Cowen announced yesterday he had signed orders on the phasing out of the seven incentives criticised in the report, as promised in the Budget last December. This combined with an effective cap on remaining tax-incentive schemes meant that all high earners would pay a minimum rate of 20 per cent.
He added that other data on the 300 wealthiest individuals in the State indicated that the effective tax rate for high earners had risen again in 2003 to over 30 per cent.
However, Opposition parties said Mr Cowen's decision to phase out the reliefs meant that hotel and other qualifying schemes that started construction this year would still attract 100 per cent write-off allowances.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton called for a full Oireachtas investigation into the costs of the remaining tax reliefs."The total investment to date under these schemes has come to around €4 billion and despite the termination of these schemes, an even larger investment of €6 billion is yet to come," he said.
Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton also claimed that Mr Cowen's cap would be ineffective. "It will be at least a decade before these reliefs will be washed out of the system," she said.
It has also emerged that the effective tax rate for some high income earners could have been further lessened by capital allowance tax breaks, which were not included in the calculations.
These allowances can have a major effect on income. Recently a Dublin businessman won a High Court case against the Revenue Commissioners to retain allowances from expenditure on a €50 million refit of the yacht Christina O, which operates in the Mediterranean.