Top 10% of earners contribute 2/3 of income tax take

you're still looking at a narronarrow view of overoverall tax. Which is silly frankly. And it's actually very self centered obviously. I point back to my original post.

https://www.pwc.ie/issues/budget-2024/income-tax-calculator.html

**Minimum** monthly disposable income would be €13,298. Tax can't make it drop below that.

You are forgetting that they can write off their health insurance and expenses, pension, etc. against tax and probably avail of other tax-efficient income.

Just the 12k a month after maximum tax free pension contributions? The poor people, how can they survive?

"whats to stop others doing the exact same"

Was the part of your post I was responding to. There are plenty of people who work extremely hard, who through no fault of their own have and could never have been in a very highly salaried position. There are countless things that prevent people from just doing the exact same.

If you think there are no, 'Oh....Bob in C-Suite's best friend's son is looking for a job' type conversations getting people put to the front of the queue with heavy suggestions that it would be a very good idea to hire him......if you think, 'Daddy's a Partner in Deloitte' doesn't open any extra doors compared with, 'My Old Mans a Dustman', what can I say but I admire your naivety. Maybe you're just not privy to some of the conversations that go on.

I'm certainly not making an, 'Eat the Rich' argument, I already pay a hell of a lot of tax and would be right in the firing line the Shinners are aiming at.....but I find the lack of self awareness and realisation of how much help, support or sometimes downright good luck the vast majority in very good financial situations actually have had, myself included. Working hard is certainly required to become wealthy in the vast majority of cases outside of, 'set up for generations' type inheritances, but hard work alone isn't even close to enough.

The, 'I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, did it all on my own' type arguments are rarely true and usually accompanied by a sneering look down at those less well off that is about as tedious as the, 'tax the rich..... by the way, the rich are any who earn more than I do' begrudgery.

Broadly speaking, I think our current system of taxation strikes a pretty good balance for the record.

Well then how does the top 10% break down.

Everyone up to the top 2% could just be barely contributing minions like the rest of us.

Are that other 8% just trying to count themselves in with the big boys.

Because I come from somewhere that has some of the most affluent families in the country and also some of the least (though property prices have been hugely benefitted by the former).

The ones who came from the less affluent areas have actually done quite well moving abroad, as tradespeople and management in retail but I can't think of one of them who would be making huge money in any corporate jobs.

Conversely the ones from well off families all have jobs with Accenture, KPMG, solicitor firms, software start ups etc.

These were all on the same sports teams growing up. Went to the same school. Even would have gone out with the same people. The only real difference when taking at face value is how much their parents made. I find it hard to believe there is much of a difference in their work ethic, just the opportunities they got.

People need to differentiate between the rich and the wealthy, the people who's net worth is increasing by 100k a year and those increasing by 1million+ a year.

We don't need to tax the rich, we do need to tax the wealthy.

Asset inflation and wealth concentration have been disastrous for other countries, the US and the UK as prime examples. Ireland has always been more progressive and has escaped this so far, but wealth moves up, wealth concentrates, and the vast majority are left with increased cost of living, struggling services, and failing infrastructure.

No one should be coming after the top 10%, or even the top 1%. It's the top 0.01% where the real wealth lies, and that's where the government should be targeting through asset taxes.

If you depend on income, you are not rich. The rich own assets and income is some irrelevant dividend for them. High earners are the most productive members of society, taxing them harshly is counterproductive. We should be targeting the non productive wealth. Capital gains, inheritance, corporate. I understand we play the corporate tax game to maintain FDI, so there is some argument for keeping that low.

By definition of being high earners, they are being renumerated at a higher rate. They are in competition in an open market for this higher rate, therefore they must produce higher returns for their employer commensurate with this expensive investment in them. Therefore they are more productive as deemed by their employers who themselves are in competition in an open market.

A large part of the pension tax break is actually just a deferal for higher income earners as they pay 40% on the way out (other than tax free lump sum) along with USC for a second time.

But anyway, the post was in response to a person saying an individual on €300k would have such a big net pay they wouldn’t look at their payslip so the post was estimating what a realistic net pay to cover todays living expenses might look like.

…this is waffle!

…if the actions of some high earners causes the inflation of the value of assets such as property and land, this is not the definition of 'productive members of society', they in fact are causing great harm to society, as little or no productive capacity increase occurs from such actions! this in fact causes the extraction of wealth from society by whats termed 'rent seeking' behaviors!

Thats the point. Thats why we keep a lot of high earners here.

40% tax isnt punitive for people earning 500k or even 200k, so keep it as it is, but keep raising the 40% tax entry level above the rate of inflation.

Having a new 50% tax rate on everything over 200k or whatever would push high earners out of the country.

no loopholes is the point

Low corporation tax helps large MNC who launder money onto Bermuda not native small startups

They have jobs with Accenture. KPMG etc because they got educated. That's not nepotism. Accenture doesn't deal with nepotism and never has. Neither do software start up etc.

If they did they would all go bust very quickly

It's not hard to believe, you just don't want to believe it

Accenture, for example, is full of people from India. A lot who have come from a lot less than what you call "some of the least ". You claiming that is nepotism?

meanwhile wealthy farmers can pretend to have no income and disguise their vast wealth in other ways

To be clear, I'm talking above and beyond just a referrals process (which I suppose could be considered a form of nepotism; call me a hypocrite, I'd be lost without referrals over the years).

Glad to hear it isn't the culture within PWC; some parts of my experience with Deloitte internal politics in particular put me off ever considering big 4 work again.