Income Tax stats by group

The Revenue’s income tax distribution statistics allow us to compare across three groups – PAYE workers, self-employed workers and proprietary directors.  We have considered the first two in previous posts.  Click table to enlarge.

Here is the distribution of income by each category.

The distributions of PAYE and self-employed workers largely track each other, though it is noticeable that the distribution for self-employers workers has a fatter right tail (more higher earners).  The distribution of income of proprietary directors (directors of companies they own) is substantially different to the other two.  It has fewer lower earners and more higher earners.

It is important to note that the horizontal axis in these graphs is not to scale.  All points are equi-distant apart even though the absolute gaps increase.

Here are the average effective tax rates for each group.

The rates across all three groups are progressive.  Lower paid PAYE workers have the lowest average tax rate and the rate does not rise above zero until near €20,000.  However, top earning PAYE  workers have the highest average effective tax at 34%.  It is only at income above €100,000 that the effective tax rate on proprietary directors falls below that of PAYE workers. 

The effective tax rate on the self employed is lower than PAYE workers at all income levels above €30,000.   It should be noted that these rates are calculated based on gross income rather than taxable income.