12/07/2011: Irish Tax Rates in International Perspective - Part 2

More tax comparatives, courtesy of OECD dataset. Note, these refer to 2009 tax returns.

In the previous post (here), I provided some assessments of the overall taxation burden in Ireland compared to EU27, plus Norway, Israel and Switzerland. Now, let's look at components of the total taxes.

First - taxes on production:
What this chart above tells us is that we are not distinct from the sample average in terms of our taxes on production expressed as a function of GNP, while we are below average when expressed in terms of GDP:

• Total production and imports tax revenues in Ireland stood at 14.0% of GNP and 11.5% GDP in 2009. Sample average stood at 13.1% (median 13.0%) and +/- 0.5 STDEV band is (11.0, 14.4). So Irish taxes on production and imports as a share of GNP were above sample average. Again, for comparison : Switzerland was at 6.8% of GDP, while Sweden at 19.0%.
• Total production and imports tax revenues are broken down into Taxes on Products, and Other Taxes on Production. Taxes on Products in Ireland yielded 12.4% of GNP and 10.2% of GDP against sample average of 11.6% (median 11.3%), with +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean of (10.6,12.7). Again, Irish tax yields here were within the band when expressed in terms of GNP and below the mean when expressed against GDP. Other Taxes on Products (other than Vat, Import Duties and direct taxes on products) accounted for 1.3% of GDP and 1.6% of GNP - against the mean of 1.5% and the +/- 0.5 STDEV band of (0.9,2.1). Neither GDP nor GNP comparative here was out of line with the mean.
• Taxes on Products mentioned above can be further broken down into Vat, Taxes & Duties on Imports (ex-Vat), Taxes on products ex-Vat & Import taxes. VAT in Ireland in 2009 accounted for 6.4% of GDP and 7.8% of GNP. Sample average here was 7.3% with +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean of (6.6,8.0), median of 7.4, which means that Irish Vat receipts were in line with the sample average in terms of GNP, but below the mean in terms of GDP. In terms of Taxes on products ex-Vat & Import taxes, the same picture holds. In terms of taxes and Duties on Imports ex-Vat, Irish receipts were above the mean (statistically significantly) for both GDP and GNP measures.
  

Next, Irish Times / ESRI / Trade Unions' favorite taxes on Income and Wealth:
Remember, we allegedly have very low taxes on these and more needs to be extracted out of the 'Irish rich' :

• Total current taxes on income and wealth in Ireland stood at 10.7% of GDP and 13% of GNP. This compares against the sample average of 11.9% of GDP (median of 10.8%) with +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean of(9.3, 14.5). In other words, our taxes were slightly (but statistically insignificantly) above average in terms of GNP and also slightly (and again statistically insignificantly) below average in terms of GDP.
• The above can be broken down into Taxes on Income, and Other Current Taxes. Taxes on income yielded 12.5% of GNP and 10.3% of GDP. Both are within sample average range: sample average was 11.3%, +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean was (8.8,13.8) and median was 10.4%. Other current taxes were small at 0.4% of GDP and 0.5% of GNP, but also within the range of the mean of 0.6% of GDP.
• Capital taxes came in within the mean range in terms of both GDP and GNP comparatives.
• Total income tax related receipts and capital taxes accounted for 22.4% of GDP and 27.2% of GNP in Ireland in 2009. The sample average was 25.2% and the median was 24.4%. +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean was (22.0, 28.5), which means that our income and wealth taxes were solidly within the range of the mean for both GDP and GNP measures. An interesting coincidence - Swiss and Netherlands' taxes in this heading were bang on identical as a function of GDP to ours.
  

Social Contributions taxes:
Now, keep in mind that social contributions are meant to pay for social protection services. For which we, in Ireland, should have lower demand than in other states of EU due to younger population, but the demand on social welfare side does offset this due to a spike in unemployment. Social protection taxes in Ireland have also been dramatically increased in Budget 2011 - not reflected in the data above.

• Social Contributions is the largest component of the tax receipts here, with Irish contributions accounting for 7.0% of GNP and 5.8% of GDP. The mean was 10.6 and the median 11.2, while +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean was (8.7,12.5). This means Irish Social Contributions overall were below the mean in terms of GDP and GNP.
• Let's take a look as to why. Our Employers' contributions (at 3.3% of GDP and 4.0% of GNP against the mean of 6.3% and band of (4.9, 7.7)) fell short of the mean in terms of GDP and GNP. The same was true for our Contributions by self- and non-employed (o.2% of GDP and GNP against the average of 1.1% with the median of 0.7% and the band of (0.6, 1.6)).
• The above 'below average" performance was offset slightly by the Employees Contributions which came in at 2.3% of GDP and 2.8% of GNP against the mean of 3.2% with the median of 3.1% and +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean of (2.4, 4.1). In other words, our Employees Contribution is within the average for GNP metric, but below the average for GDP metric.

So now on to the overall tax burden in this economy. As highlighted in the previous post, our total tax revenue stood at 35.9% of GNP and 29.6% of GDP. The average for the sample was 36.5% against the median of 35.9%. The +/- 0.5 STDEV band around the mean was (33.5, 39.6) which means that our overall tax burden

• expressed as a function of GNP was bang on with the median, and statistically indistinguishable from the mean;
• ex pressed as a function of GDP was statistically significantly below the mean.
  

Again, folks, the data above shows that by virtually all comparisons, we are a country with average tax burdens - not a low tax economy.