Budget tax trap calculation was contrived and misleading
How ironic then that the same admonition fitted perfectly the Examiner's headline of the following day 'Budget to snare 50% of taxpayers in the top rate net'.
Perusal of the detail of the article revealed that the percentage of taxpayers paying the top rate had been arrived at after excluding all those who are exempt from paying tax because their incomes fall below the exemption limit.
Given that the principal reason that so may people fall outside the tax net is the more than trebling of the exemption limit for those over 65, which Mr McCreevy has introduced in his period as Finance Minister, the impression given by using such a contrived and artificial method of calculation is extremely unfair and misleading.
Insult was added to injury by the inclusion of a table in the article tracking the percentage of taxpayers whose income partly falls to be taxed at the marginal rate over the period 1997 to 2004.
What the article failed to point out was that the marginal rate of tax has fallen from 48% to 42% over the period and, as such, the figures did not compare like with like. Neither did it point out that marginal rate taxpayers would also have benefited from a cut in the standard rate of tax from 27% to 20% over the same period.
Given that a significant element of Minister McCreevy's tax reform measures have focused on the cutting of rates rather than the large scale adjustment of tax bands, the impression given was at best incomplete and at worst highly misleading.
Close attention to detail, rather than a crude attempt at headline grabbing, is called for from a national newspaper.
Brian Cronin,
83, Clonskeagh Road,
Dublin 6.
