A new report claims the State's top earners will get 98 per cent of the benefits if the Government's controversial individualisation tax policy scheme is expanded over the next two budgets.
A draft report from the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF) claims the top 20 per cent of households got 80 per cent of the benefits of individualisation after the last Budget.
The report, details of which were reported in the Sunday Times, claims that if individualisation is continued, the benefits will be concentrated even more on higher-income households, with high earners getting 98 per cent of the benefits.
It argues this is a cause for concern in the light of the commitment in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness to developing an equitable tax system.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, has said he regrets using the term "individualisation" in his Budget last year and claimed he was not individualising the tax code.
In a Sunday Tribune interview the Minister said he had used the phrase "individualisation of the standard rate", but this had been transformed into "individualisation of the tax code".
The move resulted in married couples where the husband and wife worked paying the top tax rate after their income hit £34,000. Couples with one spouse working hit the top rate after their income reached £28,000.
The Minister strongly defended the move in the interview and rejected suggestions that it should have been flagged in advance, saying that the one way to make sure a radical proposal was killed was to debate it beforehand.