Ireland's tax levels 'among world's lowest'

Irish workers enjoy one of the lowest tax regimes in the world, according to a survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Married workers fare much better than their single colleagues, the report says.

A married worker on an average wage of just under €27,000, with a non-working spouse and two children, would have paid just five per cent tax in 2000.

A working married couple with two children would have paid around 13.5% tax.

However, a single person earning the average wage would have 20.3% deducted from pay, while those paid above the average could expect to lose almost a third of their salary on taxes.

This is toward the upper end of the OECD scale, but is still lower than in seven other EU states.

Of the 30 members of the OECD, only comparable couples in the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, Mexico and the Slovak Republic paid less tax, while the UK and US paid slightly more.