Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 68: To ask the Minister for Finance if he has received any fresh analysis of the tax relief availed of by top earners as revealed by the Revenue Commissioners' study of the 400 highest earners; and if he will indicate the findings. [38981/05]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Revenue Commissioners' study, "Effective tax rates of the top 400 earners: Report for the tax year 2001", was published by my Department in March of this year. I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that a study of the effective tax rates of the top 400 earners in 2002 is being prepared. This will be published by my Department in the normal course.

Further analysis of the effect of tax relief claimed by top earners, who were included in the report for the tax year 2001 published in March of this year, was undertaken by the Revenue Commissioners, at the request of my Department, as part of the review of tax incentives conducted this year by my Department and the Revenue Commissioners. This further analysis was undertaken in connection with the general restriction of reliefs announced in budget 2006.

The proposed restriction will not apply to earners whose gross income, before the deduction of reliefs, is less than €250,000 and it will not affect those whose effective rate of tax, that is, whose tax liability as a percentage of their gross income, is greater than 20%. Accordingly, the analysis tracked the 2001 group of top earners into the tax year 2002 and identified earners in that group who had income in excess of €250,000 and effective rates of tax of less than 20% in 2002. The measure announced in the budget was then tested against this sample. The test confirmed that the proposed general restriction of reliefs would have the effect of increasing the effective tax rates of high earners to close to 20%. The results of this analysis will be published on my Department's website at www.finance.gov.ie in the next day or so.

As I mentioned in my Budget Statement last week, I also propose to publish all the relevant reports reviewing the various tax reliefs in time for the Finance Bill.