Ms Josephine Feehily:

The most significant contributor to that increase is the universal social charge. There are solidarity levies such as those in place in many jurisdictions in times of difficulty. I will give an opinion off the top of my head, but the Deputy must not hold me to it. If he likes, I can write to him about it. I would have thought the figure might be slightly on the low side because indirect taxation accounts for a high proportion of our tax base. If our indirect taxation is higher than others, it follows that their direct taxation must be higher than ours. I think approximately 46% of our collective tax revenues, between excise and VAT, is on the indirect tax side and it was higher when the income tax figure was lower. I am pretty sure I am correct in saying that, if one includes such measures as universal charges which these figures do, we are probably still a bit behind the curve in other jurisdictions in terms of the proportion due to income tax., but I can get the data for the Deputy.