Union think tank slays taxation ‘myths’

A trade union economic think-tank is seeking to “slay” four myths around the current tax system — concluding that we are a low-tax country in which high earners do not pay more tax than average by international comparison.

Tom Healy, director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute, said “consensus” thinking is that tax increases are only for recessions while tax cuts are natural once the economy gets going again — and we all pay far too much tax anyway.

“The highly-contrived and arcane measure of ‘fiscal space’ is used to concentrate discussion on the equivalent of just a little more than 1% of total public spending in any one year,” he said.