MORE THAN 130 people each worth over \u20ac20 million declared taxable incomes of less than \u20ac45,000 in 2024, according to a new report from the Comptroller and Auditor General.<\/p>\n
The figures relate to people classified by Revenue as \u201chigh-wealth individuals\u201d, a category reserved for those with net assets exceeding \u20ac20 million.<\/p>\n
Of the 1,558 high-wealth individuals who filed an Irish income tax return for 2024, 360 (or almost one in four) declared taxable income of less than \u20ac125,000.<\/p>\n
Within that group, 132 declared taxable income below \u20ac44,816, the estimated median annual earnings in Ireland that year.<\/p>\n
There were 1,901 high-wealth individuals being managed by Revenue\u2019s dedicated unit as of July this year, as well as more than 3,500 other taxpayers connected to them.<\/p>\n
Despite the relatively low taxable incomes declared by some of those individuals, the group as a whole paid income tax at a substantially higher effective rate than the wider population.<\/p>\n
High-wealth individuals who paid income tax here had an average effective rate of 33% in 2024, compared with 17% across all income tax taxpayers.<\/p>\n
A total of \u20ac421 million in income tax was due from the 1,558 individuals, an average of just over \u20ac270,000 each.<\/p>\n
The tax paid was also heavily concentrated among a small number of people, with almost a quarter of the \u20ac421 million coming from just 20 individuals.<\/p>\n
High-wealth individuals also claimed \u20ac755 million in tax credits and reliefs during 2024, around \u20ac576 million of which related to loss relief.<\/p>\n
Revenue carried out more than 1,800 compliance interventions involving high-wealth individuals between 2019 and 2025.<\/p>\n
Those interventions generated an additional \u20ac172 million in tax, interest and penalties.<\/p>\n
Another Revenue project has been examining compliance with the domicile levy, which applies to certain Irish-domiciled people with worldwide income of more than \u20ac1 million, Irish property worth more than \u20ac5 million and an Irish income tax liability below \u20ac200,000.<\/p>\n
By the end of 2025, 15 cases examined as part of that project had generated around \u20ac5.5 million.\n<\/p>\n
PAC scrutiny<\/p>\n
Public Accounts Committee chair John Brady said Revenue\u2019s management of high-wealth individuals was among the issues arising from the C&AG report which the committee intends to examine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe role of the PAC is to follow the money,\u201d the Sinn F\u00e9in TD said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere the C&AG identifies weaknesses, waste or failures in financial management, it is our responsibility to ask difficult questions, establish where accountability lies, and ensure that action is taken.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brady said the committee would \u201crigorously study\u201d the report and probe its findings in engagements with departments and agencies over the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MORE THAN 130 people each worth over \u20ac20 million declared taxable incomes of less than \u20ac45,000 in 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[38183,42,272153,17691,272154,207821,43,1094,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-640959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-comptroller-and-auditor-general","tag-headlines","tag-high-wealth-individuals","tag-income-tax","tag-median-salary","tag-money-money-money","tag-news","tag-report","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640959","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=640959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}