Written answers
Wednesday, 7 February 2007
Department of Finance
Tax Yield
9:00 pm
Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 199: To ask the Minister for Finance the expected distribution of income earners for income tax payments for 2006 broken down in number and percentage terms into the categories of exempt, marginal relief, standard rate and higher rate; the comparative figures for each year from 1998 to date in 2007; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3883/07]
Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested by the Deputy in a format which presents the data in terms of the effective tax rates actually paid by taxpayers is set out in the table below. This is the same format as used for the presentation of pre-Budget 2007 and post-Budget 2007 distributions of earners in the 2007 Budget booklet.
| Tax Year | Exempt(1) | Paying at 20% or less(2) | Paying at greater than 20% | Total |
| 2002 | 632,70033.56% | 907,400 48.14% | 344,900 18.30% | 1,885,000 |
| 2003 | 649,30033.69% | 894,30046.40% | 383,60019.91% | 1,927,200 |
| 2004* | 677,100 33.97% | 878,20044.06% | 437,90021.97% | 1,993,200 |
| 2005* | 732,400 35.11% | 895,70042.94% | 458,00021.95% | 2,086,100 |
| 2006* | 776,100 35.92% | 937,70043.40% | 446,70020.68% | 2,160,500 |
| 2007*# | 845,900 38.19% | 930,60042.02% | 438,20019.79% | 2,214,700 |
| Notes | ||||
| (1)Standard rate liability fully covered by tax credits or Age Exemption limits. | ||||
| (2)Higher rate tax liability fully covered by tax credits and includes those who face a gross liability for tax at the marginal relief rate of taxation. | ||||
| * Provisional and likely to be revised. | ||||
| # Assuming the enactment of the changes announced in the 2007 Budget. | ||||
| Figures in the table are rounded to the nearest hundred and any apparent discrepancies in totals are due to this. |
Information for the tax years 1998/1999 to 2001 cannot be provided in the above format because the tax forecasting model operated by the Revenue Commissioners only retains data for the tax year 2002 and subsequent years. However, information for the each of the years 1999/2000 to 2001 presented in a format which shows the distribution of income earners by reference to gross liability to tax before the application of credits or tax allowances at the standard rate was provided by me in a previous reply to a Parliamentary Question on 27 September 2006 (Dáil debates, Volume 624, No. 1, Column 529). That reply also provided a distributional breakdown for the tax year 1998/1999. However, care should be taken in comparing the 1998/1999 data with that of the three subsequent years. For the latter years, the basic personal credits (formerly personal allowances) and employee credit (formerly PAYE allowance) are deducted after tax is calculated rather than before the tax calculation as was the case in 1998/1999.
The figures for the years 2002 and 2003 are based on incomes data derived from income tax returns held on Revenue records and have been grossed-up to an overall expected level to adjust for incompleteness in the numbers of returns on record at the time the data was extracted for analytical purposes.
For the years 2004 to-date, the figures are estimates from the Revenue tax forecasting model using actual data for the year 2003 adjusted as necessary for income and employment growth for the years in question. It should 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.
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