Marginal and effective tax rates

brianthebard

Michael Taft wrote a blog yesterday in response to some of the fallacies of the Frontline programme the other night. In it he discusses the difference between marginal and effective tax rates, and more importantly shows that according to a Dept of Finance survey higher earning individuals are not paying anywhere near the supposed rate of tax. This should be of interest to those who wail and moan when its suggested that those earning over 100,000 or so should pay more tax, since they are not at present paying anywhere near the top rate.

The link will explain better than I can; http://www.irishleftreview.org/2009/11/03/afraid-ber-afraid-recession-diaries-november-3rd/

irish_bob

brianthebard wrote: »

Michael Taft wrote a blog yesterday in response to some of the fallacies of the Frontline programme the other night. In it he discusses the difference between marginal and effective tax rates, and more importantly shows that according to a Dept of Finance survey higher earning individuals are not paying anywhere near the supposed rate of tax. This should be of interest to those who wail and moan when its suggested that those earning over 100,000 or so should pay more tax, since they are not at present paying anywhere near the top rate.

The link will explain better than I can; http://www.irishleftreview.org/2009/11/03/afraid-ber-afraid-recession-diaries-november-3rd/

is that the union lackey who was on with george hook yesteday evening , never heard such blather

Stheno

If you are a PAYE worker then apart from Pension relief there is not really any way of paying only e.g 5% tax.

For example if you go to any of the tax calculators and plug in the figures, and excluding any PS levy or reliefs such as pensions, then a PAYE worker on 25k will pay an effective rate of 7.56%, a PAYE worker on 50k will pay an effective rate of 24.82% , on 75k will pay an effective rate of 31.45%, and 100k will pay 34.63%.

So the higher earners in the PAYE sector on 75k + are paying more than four times as much effective rate tax as someone on 25k and as it's deducted at source then not much can be done to avoid it.

Tipp Man

nouggatti wrote: »

If you are a PAYE worker then apart from Pension relief there is not really any way of paying only e.g 5% tax.

For example if you go to any of the tax calculators and plug in the figures, and excluding any PS levy or reliefs such as pensions, then a PAYE worker on 25k will pay an effective rate of 7.56%, a PAYE worker on 50k will pay an effective rate of 24.82% , on 75k will pay an effective rate of 31.45%, and 100k will pay 34.63%.

So the higher earners in the PAYE sector on 75k + are paying more than four times as much effective rate tax as someone on 25k and as it's deducted at source then not much can be done to avoid it.

Your numbers look about right to me (I'm sure you have plugged them in a tax calculator)

Not sure how anyone can actually argue with this

brianthebard

nouggatti that's pretty much covered in the article already. However if you look at the link to the Dept of Finance survey you'll see that for higher earners (the lowest figure they use is 'under 250,000') this is not the case and these people on average are paying 20%, and no one surveyed paid over 25%.

Riskymove

Tipp Man wrote: »

Not sure how anyone can actually argue with this

is anyone arguing with it?

if you read the blog, you'll find that that is the system but that if you have enough reliefs you can reduce the amount of tax you pay (quite significantly in some cases).

Stheno

brianthebard wrote: »

nouggatti that's pretty much covered in the article already. However if you look at the link to the Dept of Finance survey you'll see that for higher earners (the lowest figure they use is 'under 250,000') this is not the case and these people on average are paying 20%, and no one surveyed paid over 25%.

I was specifically addressing the part of the article which asked

"Is it too much to ask that those who earn €100,000 per year pay an effective tax rate of 25 percent? "

when the current effective rate for a PAYE worker on 100k is actually more than 34%.

The survey is in relation to 439 individuals, that's not an awful lot of people overall compared to the total workforce.

dearg lady

Yes, this is correct, anyone can claim various reliefs to bring their tax bill down considerably. There's an awful lot of these reliefs available, and tehy're available to PAYE workers same as anyone else. They generally involve investing money in a particular scheme and gettin full or partial tax relief on amount invested. Some investments are riskier than others. The only thing I'd be concerned about is that the figures linked relate to 2007, and are somewhat out of date. There is a restriction on the amount of relief avaialble for high earners(over €250,000)

Riskymove

nouggatti wrote: »

I was specifically addressing the part of the article which asked .

fair enough

when the current effective rate for a PAYE worker on 100k is actually more than 34%

but is that assuming there is no relief at all?

most people would have some, no?

brianthebard

nouggatti wrote: »

I was specifically addressing the part of the article which asked when the current effective rate for a PAYE worker on 100k is actually more than 34%.

The survey is in relation to 439 individuals, that's not an awful lot of people overall compared to the total workforce.

yes it is a reasonably small survey, but as the Dept of Finance's own figures they should be reliable. Also its not as if the survey showed these high earners to be just a point or two off the Ministers figure of 53%-no one surveyed paid over 25%, so imo its fair to say that if this survey was expanded to include all high earners it would not be massively different. Comparisons to the total workforce are in this case not necessary, since it was never intended to apply across the board.

dearg lady wrote:

The only thing I'd be concerned about is that the figures linked relate to 2007, and are somewhat out of date. There is a restriction on the amount of relief avaialble for high earners(over €250,000)

I think 2007 are the most recent figures you are likely to find. The survey is called 'Analysis of High Income Individuals’ Restriction', the object of the survey was to see if the restriction you mention was having an effect.

Zynks

For the sake of fairness we would need to know what are the schemes being used by the high income people to reduce tax liability. If they are programs that are socially beneficial which the government chose to sponsor indirectly through tax relief instead of funding it out of state coffers, then the reduced income tax paid might be justifiable.

Pages 6-9 describe where the money has gone, and many sound fair to me because they relate to urban renewal, possible job creating investments and income from knowledge such as artist income, patents and so on.

In any case, these allowances must be very carefully monitored, and abuse should be very heavily fined.

If anyone has an issue with the rules and allowances/tax deductibility of certain activities, then create awareness of those or talk to your TD. I personally have an issue with the racing horses, but criticizing people who are playing by the rules just because they are doing well sounds a bit childish (for the record, I am not a high earner and I am not benefiting from any of those schemes)

dearg lady

Zynks wrote: »

For the sake of fairness we would need to know what are the schemes being used by the high income people to reduce tax liability. If they are programs that are socially beneficial which the government chose to sponsor indirectly through tax relief instead of funding it out of state coffers, then the reduced income tax paid might be justifiable.
Pages 6-9 describe where the money has gone, and many sound fair to me because they relate to urban renewal, possible job creating investments and income from knowledge such as artist income, patents and so on.
In any case, these allowances must be very carefully monitored, and abuse should be very heavily fined.
If anyone has an issue with the rules and allowances/tax deductibility of certain activities, then create awareness of those or talk to your TD. I personally have an issue with the racing horses, but criticizing people who are playing by the rules just because they are doing well sounds a bit childish (for the record, I am not a high earner and I am not benefiting from any of those schemes)

I'd agree with a lot of what you say, however I think some people feel annoyed as it's often spouted that high earners shouldn't be taxed anymore as they pay a total of 53% of marginal pay over to the government when in fact this is not always the case. they are of course completely legitimate, but that doens't mean we can't take issue with them! I do think now would be a good time for the government to reduce the relief available under some of these schemes

nesf

It's a terrible article mixing up high earners (i.e. top tax band earners) and ultra-high wealth people who don't earn they money through the PAYE system. The discussions of marginal tax rates on Frontline were about the former not the latter. The marginal tax rates for the former is around 53% when the higher levies kick in etc.

brianthebard

Zynks wrote: »

For the sake of fairness we would need to know what are the schemes being used by the high income people to reduce tax liability. If they are programs that are socially beneficial which the government chose to sponsor indirectly through tax relief instead of funding it out of state coffers, then the reduced income tax paid might be justifiable.

Pages 6-9 describe where the money has gone, and many sound fair to me because they relate to urban renewal, possible job creating investments and income from knowledge such as artist income, patents and so on.

In any case, these allowances must be very carefully monitored, and abuse should be very heavily fined.

If anyone has an issue with the rules and allowances/tax deductibility of certain activities, then create awareness of those or talk to your TD. I personally have an issue with the racing horses, but criticizing people who are playing by the rules just because they are doing well sounds a bit childish (for the record, I am not a high earner and I am not benefiting from any of those schemes)

Well there's two issues here, one is as dearg lady said that the rich are not paying the 53% tax rate which Minister Lenihan claims, which means he's lying to us yet again. But secondly there is the more seedy element of Ireland's position as a tax haven which Taft also mentions and provides a link to evidence, which you can see in the article I posted.

nesf

brianthebard wrote: »

Well there's two issues here, one is as dearg lady said that the rich are not paying the 53% tax rate which Minister Lenihan claims, which means he's lying to us yet again. But secondly there is the more seedy element of Ireland's position as a tax haven which Taft also mentions and provides a link to evidence, which you can see in the article I posted.

Lenihan DID NOT CLAIM THAT THE UBER WEALTHY WERE PAYING 53% TAX. He was very obviously talking about PAYE workers in the higher tax bracket. The only way you could think he was saying the latter is if you were dim or trying to misconstrue the statement to turn it into yet another rant about the super wealthy.

Christ.

brianthebard

nesf wrote: »

It's a terrible article mixing up high earners (i.e. top tax band earners) and ultra-high wealth people who don't earn they money through the PAYE system. The discussions of marginal tax rates on Frontline were about the former not the latter. The marginal tax rates for the former is around 53% when the higher levies kick in etc.

Taft took a direct quote from the Minister via the Irish Times;

Mr Lenihan said the marginal rate of tax is 53 per cent and that if the Government was to increase it further to raise an extra €1 billion “everyone or every couple earning over €100,000 would pay tax at a marginal rate of 63 per cent”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1030/1224257681293.html

He said nothing about the PAYE system there. Are you telling me that when people on this forum say we should not tax high earners or increase the top rate of tax that they are making the distinction you make above? Because I've never seen it.

Stop shouting Nesf, its not cool. You're being pretty abusive.

nesf

brianthebard wrote: »

Taft took a direct quote from the Minister via the Irish Times;

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1030/1224257681293.html

He said nothing about the PAYE system there. Are you telling me that when people on this forum say we should not tax high earners or increase the top rate of tax that they are making the distinction you make above? Because I've never seen it.

Stop shouting Nesf, its not cool. You're being pretty abusive.

And it's cool and hip to misquote a Minister who was obviously talking about normal 100K a year families given that he like gives them as an example? Give me a break.

dearg lady

nesf I'd agree it's not a great article, but just out of interest, do you think it's important for people to be aware of all these reliefs that many high earners avail of?

brianthebard

nesf wrote: »

And it's cool and hip to misquote a Minister who was obviously talking about normal 100K a year families given that he like gives them as an example? Give me a break.

Cool and hip? misquote? I linked you and provided a direct quote. Get over yourself, if you don't like what the blog says don't comment, don't throw a hissy fit.

nesf

dearg lady wrote: »

nesf I'd agree it's not a great article, but just out of interest, do you think it's important for people to be aware of all these reliefs that many high earners avail of?

Want to know something sickening? We make more money off them by leaving these reliefs in place.

These people are wealthy enough to change their residency in order to avail of low tax rates. They have an out normal high wealth families (like ones on 100K) don't have. So if you raise taxes on them too much they can pack up and take their taxable income elsewhere.

It sickens me. It really does but unless international tax treaties change, this is how it works.

nesf

brianthebard wrote: »

Cool and hip? misquote? I linked you and provided a direct quote. Get over yourself, if you don't like what the blog says don't comment, don't throw a hissy fit.

Um, this is a discussion forum not your blog, if you don't like comments on a thread you start because you disagree with them then don't start threads.

dearg lady

nesf wrote: »

Want to know something sickening? We make more money off them by leaving these reliefs in place.

These people are wealthy enough to change their residency in order to avail of low tax rates. They have an out normal high wealth families (like ones on 100K) don't have. So if you raise taxes on them too much they can pack up and take their taxable income elsewhere.

It sickens me. It really does but unless international tax treaties change, this is how it works.

Oh sure, I know they can change their residency easy enough. I know this was mentioned on another thread, but I wonder what the point of diminishing returns is in this situation. Of course, we wouldn't know for sure til we passed it!!

nesf

dearg lady wrote: »

Oh sure, I know they can change their residency easy enough. I know this was mentioned on another thread, but I wonder what the point of diminishing returns is in this situation. Of course, we wouldn't know for sure til we passed it!!

Well, it depends on someone's income. The lower it is, the less attractive changing residency is. This is then influenced by the tax rate levied on them. There are countries with close to 0% income tax. You raise tax you chase more money out of the country. It's a nightmare scenario for a Government.

Diarmuid

nesf wrote: »

Well, it depends on someone's income. The lower it is, the less attractive changing residency is. This is then influenced by the tax rate levied on them. There are countries with close to 0% income tax. You raise tax you chase more money out of the country. It's a nightmare scenario for a Government.

Wealth tax in France hasn't worked out so well.

Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.

Scofflaw

dearg lady wrote: »

Yes, this is correct, anyone can claim various reliefs to bring their tax bill down considerably. There's an awful lot of these reliefs available, and tehy're available to PAYE workers same as anyone else. They generally involve investing money in a particular scheme and gettin full or partial tax relief on amount invested. Some investments are riskier than others. The only thing I'd be concerned about is that the figures linked relate to 2007, and are somewhat out of date. There is a restriction on the amount of relief avaialble for high earners(over €250,000)

PAYE workers can avail of many of the reliefs that are available to the self-employed, but don't - in many cases aren't even aware of them - and these are the same reliefs that high-earning PAYE workers use to bring their overall rate down.

One difference is that a reduction of 5% in a tax bill of €34,000 is €1,700 - which is doing the paperwork for - whereas on a tax bill of €5,000 it's only €250, which for most people isn't. Another is that if your tax bill is large enough, it becomes worth employing an accountant, and your accountant is more likely to know about such schemes.

That doesn't change the fact that the schemes involved are open to all tax payers.

cordially,
Scofflaw

nesf

Diarmuid wrote: »

Wealth tax in France hasn't worked out so well.

Wealth taxes are excellent vote buyers when you can afford to lose tax revenue. In a tax revenue short country, they're not such a good option.

Zynks

The bottom line is that we are not too far from chocking the economy and stimulating an exodus of money and brains. Any taxation increases will result in greater losses to the overall economy. We need to find ways to increase productivity and wealth. Wealth will (or should) be a key tool to fund/promote innovation and productivity, not a prime taxation target. Ah, and we could do with learning to save a bit more....

Naz_st

I think the notion that ultra-high earners only pay small percentages of effective tax is not as black and white as it is often made out. I mean if they're on 500k+ salary, and they're only paying <100k tax (e.g. 20%) then it's quite likely that the difference between the amount of tax you would expect them to have paid (say 40% or 200k) is not simply arriving in their bank account, but rather is probably being invested pre-tax in some scheme or other (e.g. BES, construction, whatever). In that case, the money not received by the revenue commissioner (in this hypothetical, 100k) is actually helping to stimulate the economy in some other fashion (BES is a big source of income for startup companies, construction based tax incentives support construction jobs etc). I don't think it's as simple as "the rich fill out a special tax form in a special way and hey presto get a special low tax rate".

It's also possible that the 400 odd individuals mentioned in the blog post had significant capital losses to write-off (especially if they were interviewed in the last couple of years!).

Diarmuid

Thought I would throw this chart in from another thread. It's more relevant to this thread

Zynks

What this chart seems to support is that proportionally there are more households paying taxes in France and in the UK and the tax load is more evenly distributed in gross terms, not percentage wise.

I am not surprised that in Ireland 10% of the households pay about 40% of the taxes and that the bottom 70% pay almost just over 10%. What is surprising to me is that the UK with a much lower minimum wage and a slightly lower average income has such a higher input with the lower 70% paying about 40% of taxes and the higher 10% paying just 20%.

optocynic

brianthebard wrote: »

nouggatti that's pretty much covered in the article already. However if you look at the link to the Dept of Finance survey you'll see that for higher earners (the lowest figure they use is 'under 250,000') this is not the case and these people on average are paying 20%, and no one surveyed paid over 25%.

How many ways do the whingers in the unions want to spout this hate-mongering jealousy.

Let's keep it simple.. If someone on 100k pays 'only' 25%... isn't that 25k a year?
How is that not enough?