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A NEW REPORT has said that Ireland is developing a level of income inequality similar to the US.
The report – Cherishing all Equally: Economic Inequality in Ireland – says that Ireland will continue to move closer to US levels of inequality unless there are major changes to economic and social policy, including taxation policy.
The report was published today by the independent think-tank, TASC.
It is the first detailed analysis of economic inequality in Ireland and looks beyond income and wealth at a range of other issues including public services, taxation, family composition, people’s capacities and the cost of goods and services.
The report shows that before tax and welfare payments:
According to Revenue data, the top 1% of income earners in Ireland averaged €373,300 compared to €27,400 for the bottom 90%:
The top 10% hold somewhere between 42% to 58% of Ireland’s wealth compared to 12% for the bottom 50%:
Workers’ share of national income fell from 65% in 1990 to less than 56% in 2009:
Dr Nat O’Connor of Tasc said that such a level of income inequality is not inevitable.
Addressing economic inequality is important because we know that more equal societies perform better on a whole range of indicators such as crime, health and educational attainment. More equal societies are also more stable and have better chances of stronger and sustained economic growth.
“High concentrations of wealth and income can lead to disproportionate political power, and so more equal societies are better able to promote democracy and ensure the public interest is safeguarded in public policies.”
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Leave those 1% alone, I plan to be a 1%er just as soon as I can figure out who to bribe or which political party to join ….
The only problem is “just reading” is that you need money, and lots of it, to bribe corrupt people in the first place. A ticket for the gravy train doesn’t come cheap !!
Usually costs you your soul too
That must have been the 1% that called Enda saying they got too much money in last month’s wages.
Hardly a surprise here. High concentrations of wealth and income can lead to disproportionate political power. How true is this. Tax the poor and allow the rich HSBC.
Article is about earnings. The top 10 % would pay more than their fair share of tax.
And also find away to avoid paying tax.
Beverly Cooper Flynn rings a bell
@littleone of course they avoid paying tax as much as possible, tax avoision is 100% legal. Its the reason so many US companies came to set up shop in Ireland, and brought jobs with them. tax evasion on the other hand……
Your right frank I should have said tax evasion not tax avoidance.
you can even keep your elite political job and still be a tax evader without a shadow of a doubt. Great little country we have
ha.. al capone should have been a politician.
You’re talking rubbish
The top 1% of all income tax cases in Ireland earn 9.1% of income and pay 30.4% of the taxation, the top 5% pay almost 55% of all taxation
He had enough in his pocket
So you have the top 1% and the bottom 90%…. what about that so important 9% in the middle, why arn’t they included by themselves?
I’d say because it didn’t serve their cause. They should have quoted the 1% cutoff 90% cutoff , 50% cutoff etc.
The only reason anyone with any knowledge of statistics would average a top or bottom percentile. Is to make the top appear higher and the bottom appear lower. It is essentially a nonsense statistic. I’d say TASC have included it as the headline statistic the get more attention for their paper.
I’m in that 9%.
Go me
Are you sure?
The TASC data shows the AVERAGE of the bottom 90% at 27k and the AVERAGE of the top 1% at 373k.
So if you are somewhere between those two then you could be anywhere between about 45% and 99.5%
See here.
http://faculty.elgin.edu/dkernler/statistics/ch07/images/90th-percentile-IQs.jpg
As I said above the average of the below quartile is essentially nonsense.
Given a normal distribution the 50% mark will be the average industrial wage.
@Enda – not quite, these figures are for income, whereas the average industrial wage is, well, what it says on the tin. It excludes company / stock dividends (the big earner for most wealthy), interest, rental income, as well as (at the lower end of the scale) agricultural incomes, pensions, benefits etc.
We’ll remember your name Charlie. when you’re up against the whitewashed wall
I meant to say about the average industrial wage. It will be shifted downward slightly due to the factors you mention but not as low as averaging the bottom 90%
These numbers are before tax and welfare payments! This is just another quango massaging numbers to justify its existence
They’re also averaged Peter and averages are used to hide facts
TASC isn’t a quango.
If you have statistics to show ireland doesn’t have massive income Inequality you are more than welcome to post it here. I don’t think the word quango will cut it.
If you use numbers to back up your point then you deserve to have those numbers questioned especially if you cherry pick them. I made no statement about income inequality. If someone does then they better look at everything impartially or else expect to be criticised.
Ya, the same report shows that once taxes and social welfare are taken into account Ireland has similar equality to the rest of Europe.
Europe also has an income Inequality problem, the world does. When 80 people amount to 50% of the world’s wealth you cannot deny their is a problem.
In fairness, TASC is a trade-union lobby group, not a quango.
So its a trade union lobby group massaging numbers in order to justify its existence. Apologies
Why is that a problem Kevin?
The Early Globalist’s dream are coming to fruition.
JP Morgan, ould Rockefeller and the Rothchilds will have to rise from the Dead to view their Demonic legacy.
Satanic Financial Deviant Perverts.
An excellent documentary on this called inequality for all is well worth a watch, I’ll see if I can get a link.
As long as the rich get richer and the poor stay poor the government parties will be happy..
Can’t wait to see the FG supporters trying to justify not raising tax’s on the 1%. If I remember correctly they threatened to cut SW payments in response to a Labour call for higher tax’s on the top earners a while back.
The labour party as in the labour party in with FG who has facilitated this rise in income Inequality. Please reference this claim
“FINE Gael is threatening to press for a cut in the dole in next week’s Budget, if Labour keeps pushing for tax increases on high earners.”
No one, the article is about income inequality I.e. Income distribution. It is not about taxation. When the authors included tax and other deductions the position changed entirely. This does not appear to be referenced in the article above. Once tax and other deductions are included then the level of equality rises dramatically. Taxation in Ireland is highly progressive but it will never be possible to eliminate gaps in wealth of this scale using taxation alone. The only way to do it using taxation would be to push rates so high that it would amount to confiscation. Other mechanisms will have to be used if we wish to reduce income inequality. Any attempt to use taxation as the sole means of achieving this goal will have serious detrimental side effects. Given the nature of our capitalist economy and our linkages to the UK and the USA attaining greater income equality (not income tax progressivity) will be very difficult and will challenge policy makers.
Interesting. A tax would have worked better than the USC. That said it’s clear they have no backbone has tax was decreased in the following budget for high earners once again helping income Inequality get worse
Nice try,
Separating issues of taxation from income distribution.
Won’t work, though… The back story here is how badly FG screwed up in lining some people’s pockets while pushing the majority into penury.
You also forgot to mention that parties like SF and the AAA are actively campaigning for a repeal of the property tax, even though property is the largest source of wealth in the country. That’s not left wing; that’s plain old populism.
Pathetic socialists everywhere in this comment section.
Lets give everyone, everything for free. Don’t worry about how to pay for it lads, just doesn’t matter as long as we get into power.
Poverty is the best motivator of all. So get up off your arse and do some work.
Would that be on a zero hours contract and minimum wage with a hidden social welfare element, or job bridge. All to message the unemployment figures while the top 10% increase their profit margins…
Oh no….the poor people on zero hour contracts and getting paid minimum wage. If you can’t deal witht that then leave. Save two months of social welfare and get out, go make your fortune elsewhere if you can’t handle the tougher circumstances in Ireland at the moment.
I wouldn’t ever demean myself by going on Jobsbridge though. How pathetic you would have to be to work for someone else for free essentially. At the end of the day though, no one is forced to take jobsbridge.
I’m sick of this moaning and entitled attitude people in Ireland have developed. Its no wonder the country is being dragged down by pathetic weak people who are a drain on resources.
How very original Gordon, should you not be in home-work club and not messing on the internet while mummy is out.
Yeah joey, it looks like it was about 2 pm when you posted that. Nice to see you out of bed early for a change. Time to fight the against the bourgeoisie, of course after a trip down to the bookies and to the local for pint.
Stop leeching my taxes and get a job. Peasant.
Don’t politicians get everything for free too gekko. Even phone calls to Kenya. Not every one can work. Old age . disabled.
What is the total tax contribution of this 1%? I’d imagine that they pay proportionately more in tax? I would have absolutely no problem with people earning large amounts of money, ambition is to be admired, envy isn’t.
Your confusing ambition with corruption and getting everything handed to you.
Do you have a problem with a billionaire been worth 3 billion instead of 4 for the sake of giving homes to thousands of disadvantaged people?
If you think that inequality is because some people work harder than others or that all those at the top have constructively contributed to the economy, then you’re incredibly naive.
The top 1% of all income tax cases in Ireland earn 9.1% of income and pay 30.4% of the taxation, the top 5% pay almost 55% of all taxation
Quantities of overall tax are irrelevant. It’s the percentage of wealth of an individual that matters. €1 for a person on minimum wage is worth more than to somebody on €200,000 a year.
And that’s why they pay a higher percentage in tax as well. Your effective rate of tax keeps rising the more you earn.
Oh… well if it’s percentage you’re talking about, I pay 54% on income, 33% capital gains and my company pays 12.5% corporation tax. We have a progressive system which means higher earners pay a higher percentage. So what about you ignore land?
That’s life, some people have and some people have not. My problem is I fall into that 9% and its that 9% that get screwed for everything.
Thats capitalism, if you don’t like it, leave!
To where…?
Capitalism cut the NASA manned space funding so we won’t be going anywhere
Capitalism has failed because of Greed and stupid governments that thought they had some influence on a private ponzi system.
It’s not an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Read Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality or watch ‘Inequality for All’ by Robert Reich and you can see that it’s not inevitable.
Capitalism also paid for all of NASA’s success and achievements.
@ Joey – Capitalism hasn’t failed at all. In fact the most successful, peaceful and advanced era in human history has come because of it.
Socialism/Communism on the other hand…..well just have a look and see where that has gotten nations that followed those ideologies to the letter.
Gordon Gekko setting up a straw man argument here. It’s not correct to say that if you are critiquing the current system you must be a communist. That’s Fox News level of argumentation, i.e. a load of C**P.
@Joseph O’Regan, would you prefer communism?
Hold on a second….its laughable in such an ironic sense the assertions you are making.
Firstly yes I agree Fox news have that typical style argument to throw out but you forget that thejournal.ie is essentially the far left wing version of Fox on an Irish level.
Everything is the fault of the bankers, the corporations, Britain, America, Europe, NWO and then FF/FG….Lab are sell outs….same strawman arguments all the time.
I also know the political ideology of many of the commenters here. So many of them would love to see socialist republic set up or even in the grand vision of their latest en vogue hero, Comrade Paul Murphy…who on two occasions has stated that his ideal idea for Ireland would be a replication of post-revolutionary soviet Russia.
What I am saying is that you do not have to be a communist or a socialist to criticise the inequality caused by capitalism because such severe inequality is not an inevitable consequence of market forces. Again, go and read Joseph Stiglitz. He’s hardly a communist.
Yeah I know that. I think we have wires crossed here. I wasn’t commenting about something in general, I was specifically replying to Joseph who is unashamedly a communist and his assertion that capitalism has failed.
By all means anyone from anywhere on the spectrum can criticise. I would strongly encourage it. I’ve read the price of inequality and it certainly gave me food for thought.
Joanna, try Cuba.
This should be a good one.
as long as I have enough money for what i need what else matters?
Yippee! I’m in the top 90%…. I think.
Ireland needs a left wing party that actually advocates left wing principles, i.e. taxes that aim to prevent these levels of inequality. Instead, the only policies put forward by the so-called left in Ireland attack taxes. E.g. repeal of the USC (which does have progressive bands) or the property tax (which is actually a wealth tax seeing as property is a vast form of wealth in Ireland). These aren’t left wing policies at all.
Also, I would like a party to campaign to introduce a third band of tax, e.g. on wages that are over €150k.
What effective rate of tax do you think they should pay at that level?
Ireland has enough left wing parties I think, In my opinion Ireland really needs a proper conservative party. FG/FF are centre/centre-right in name but in practice they struggle with conservative politics.
Definitely think a third tax band on earnings over €150k would be too low…. I would somewhat agree with a third rate on those over €250k.
How about The Progressive Democrats?
Dennis O Brian’s wealth increased by 12% last year to over 6 billion and the piece of shit does’nt even pay tax ….thats the type of rich person in Ireland …unpatriotic !!….but he’s Enda’s buddy so no surprises there …
Either way we pay way too much tax. Where is the percentage that have never worked and continually draw off the state!!
Not a drop like the TOP 1% in the U.S.
have your say