Sir, – I would like to commend Fine Gael for proposing tax reforms and actually representing the vast majority of the electorate, those who get up every morning, go to work and pay tax. Bizarrely this cohort of the population has been written out of political discourse by an ultra-socialist, populist media in recent years. We find ourselves in a strange world where those earning the average industrial wage, and paying the higher tax bracket, could never afford the types of property being built and bought by the Government to provide social housing. Those people need a message of hope, to be represented in Government and to be heard, not least because they are the majority of the population. – Yours, etc,
SEAN MOONEY,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – Conor Roddy (Letters, June 1st) takes issue with my observation (May 30th) that Ireland is unique among developed countries in that about 40 per cent of income earners do not have an income tax liability. He offers in evidence the United States where, pre-pandemic, 44 per cent of households paid no federal income taxes.
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I think there is an element of comparing apples and oranges here. The first point is that the Irish Revenue figures over the years showing 30 per cent to 40 per cent of income earners not paying income tax refer to earned income. In Ireland these figures would be added to by pensioners or those in receipt of certain other social welfare payments who are not taxpayers. The US figures quoted by Mr Roddy refer to “households” and, I suspect, include those which do not have earned income. There is an additional difference between Ireland and the United States. In many US states income earners pay income taxes at the state and, in some cases, at the local level. Such taxes are deductible for federal income tax purposes. As a result, earners on lower incomes may have an income tax liability at the state level but not at the federal level, which is the sole focus of Mr Roddy’s figures.
In the circumstances I think a better example is needed to refute my claim. But the US tax system does support an assertion on which, I think, Mr Roddy and I are in agreement that our top rate of income tax bites at income levels which are far too low. For 2023, the 37 per cent top rate of US federal income tax applies to income in excess of $578,000 for a single person and to income in excess of $694,000 for a married couple filing jointly.
One recalls that Bernie Sanders terrified the American right and was denounced as a rabid socialist when he proposed as part of his 2016 campaign that an income tax rate of 52 per cent should apply to annual income in excess of $10 million. At the time a single person in Ireland, which is not of course socialist, was paying a marginal rate of 49.5 per cent on income in excess of €33,800. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Dublin 6.