COMMENT: Read my lips, no new rates
Nominal tax rates don't matter much, what counts is the overall impact of the system, writes Brian Keegan.
The top rate of income tax in Ireland is 41 per cent.
As with so many official pronouncements, this is true while managing not to be correct. Almost nobody pays tax at 41 per cent.
We start off paying tax at 20 per cent but various tax credits and reliefs ensure that income tax doesn't have to be paid over on the lower chunks of our income. That's the positive side.
The negative ...
