Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 191: To ask the Minister for Finance the number of income earners that earn more than €100,000 per year; and the additional yield to the Exchequer if the effective minimum tax rate in all earnings in excess of €100,000 was increased to 50%. [31746/12]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the number of income earners earning more than €100,000 per year, estimated by reference to the income tax year 2012, is 113,500. As the Deputy is aware, the top rate of income tax is 41 per cent, which applies to single individuals earning in excess of €32,800, married one-earner couples earning in excess of €41,800 and married two-earning couples earning in excess of €65,600 (the tax band of €65,600 to married couples with two incomes in 2012 is transferable between spouses up to a maximum of €41,800). Other streams of income are taxed at different rates, such as deposit interest income, which is liable to a 30 per cent rate of tax. Therefore, it is assumed that the Deputy is referring to the introduction of a third rate of income tax of 50 per cent to be applied on the portion of incomes in excess of €100,000 per annum.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that the estimated full year yield to the Exchequer, estimated by reference to 2012 incomes, of the introduction of a new 50% rate would be of the order of €490 million. This figure is an estimate from the Revenue tax-forecasting model using latest actual data for the year 2009, adjusted as necessary for income and employment trends in the interim. It is, therefore, provisional and subject to revision. For the purposes of this estimate it is assumed that the threshold for the proposed new tax rate would not alter the existing standard rate band structure applying to single and widowed persons, to lone parents and married couples. However, major issues would need to be resolved as to how, in practice, such a new rate could be integrated into the current system and how this would affect the relative position of different types of income earners.

It should also be noted that a married couple who has elected or has been deemed to have elected for joint assessment is counted as one tax unit.