Many of the Republic\u2019s wealthiest people cut their income tax liabilities by claiming an aggregate \u20ac755 million in tax credits and reliefs in 2024, the State spending watchdog has found.<\/p>\n
After examining how Revenue manages the affairs of almost 2,000 high-wealth individuals (HWIs), the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) attributed \u201crelatively low amounts of tax due\u201d from many of to the amount of taxable income earned and the use of credits and reliefs.<\/p>\n
Some \u20ac576 million of the \u20ac755 million in credits and reliefs claimed in 2024 related to loss reliefs, the C&AG\u2019s annual report said. <\/p>\n
Loss reliefs allow taxpayers to cut their liability by setting off losses in trade, professions or employment against profits and gains. <\/p>\n
The report said Revenue finalised just over 1,800 HWI \u201cinterventions\u201d between 2019 and 2025, resulting in a combined \u20ac172 million additional yield of tax, interest and penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe percentage of yielding cases in those years ranged between 26 per cent and 42 per cent. This is typically higher than the yield rate for Revenue\u2019s compliance activity across all taxpayers,\u201d said the C&AG.<\/p>\n
Citing opportunities for aggressive tax planning, the Comptroller & Auditor General called on the Revenue to use monthly reviews to produce new annual reports on high-wealth individuals\u2019 compliance risk. The Revenue was also told to \u201censure\u201d such taxation is reappraised in an appropriate timeframe.<\/p>\n
The tax authority agreed with both recommendations.<\/p>\n
All high-wealth individuals were subject to a comprehensive appraisal when assigned to the HWI case base, with reappraisals carried out whenever \u201chigh value transactions, significant events or other risks arise\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still, the C&AG found the Revenue had no mechanism \u201cfor monitoring the extent to which reappraisals are being completed\u201d when there were no big transactions or significant events.<\/p>\n
The Comptroller & Auditor General found the tax affairs of 1,901 high-wealth individuals were managed by the Revenue as of July, with 3,500 people and entities treated as secondary cases.<\/p>\n
Secondary cases were taxpayers connected with a high-wealth individual, including family members who do not have net assets greater than \u20ac20 million, as well as non-trading partnerships and companies, foundations, trusts and co-ownerships.<\/p>\n
In 2024, net income tax totalling \u20ac27.6 billion was due in relation to all taxpayers, including \u20ac421 million in relation to the 1,558 HWIs who filed an income tax return. This excluded capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax. <\/p>\n
The effective tax rate for high-wealth individuals in 2024 was 33 per cent \u2013 almost double the 17 per cent rate for all income tax taxpayers. \u201cThe average income tax due from HWIs was almost \u20ac270,200 while the average amount of income tax due from all income tax taxpayers was just under \u20ac8,400,\u201d said the C&AG. <\/p>\n
The report went on to note \u201csignificant variations\u201d in the effective tax rates between high-wealth individuals, with 24 per cent of the total \u20ac421 million HWI income tax return coming from the top 20 high-wealth individuals. \u201cThe relatively low amounts of tax due by many HWIs reflect the amount of taxable income earned in the year and the utilisation of credits and reliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many of the Republic\u2019s wealthiest people cut their income tax liabilities by claiming an aggregate \u20ac755 million in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[239416,24166,61,60,43,12785,211835],"class_list":["post-640955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-civil-conflict","tag-demonstrations","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-religion","tag-riots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}