The top 115 earners in the country received average tax breaks worth some €500,000 each or a total of €42 million, new figures reveal.
A Revenue Commissioners study released to Labour Party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton shows a breakdown of the effective tax rates among top earners in the short tax year of 2001.
Ms Burton said the figures revealed each of these individuals had received "the equivalent of a guaranteed lotto win".
The study shows no reduction in the numbers paying no tax at all. In the 1999/2000 tax year and in 2001, some 29 top earners paid no tax at all, Ms Burton said.
She described as a "scandal" that some very wealthy individuals are paying no tax because of the availability of tax breaks while single workers on the average industrial wage of some €30,000 can end up paying 42 per cent on overtime earnings.
"The top 115 earners claimed tax breaks totalling €42 million in 2001, or €57 million in a full year. This is an average tax break from property-based schemes of €494,000.
"The study also sets out how the Government intends to tackle the problem - from now on they will refuse to release the information. In a section of the study entitled 'Proposed new Methodology going forward', it is clear that the category of 'zero per cent effective tax rate' is to be abolished in future studies.
"From now on, anyone who pays DIRT tax on any deposit interest, will not be counted as having a zero per cent effective tax rate," Ms Burton said.
"It should also be noted that these figures do not take account of any artists' exempt income, or patent income, thus understating the numbers of high earners with low tax contributions.
"It is difficult for the ordinary taxpayer to accept a situation where people are on trolleys in A&E units in hospitals when significant numbers of high earners pay little or no tax," Ms Burton said.