Almost one-third of workers will pay tax at highest rate this year

LATEST figures reveal that the Government has failed to keep its promise of reducing the number of people paying tax at the highest rate to 20%.

In its programmes for government following the 1997 and 2002 elections, the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition pledged "to ensure that 80% of all earners pay tax only at the standard rate". This would have meant just one-in-five workers were paying at the 42% rate.

But figures released by Finance Minister Brian Cowen show that almost 32% of earners or one-in-three will pay tax at the higher rate this year.