asked the Minister for Finance the percentage of national income earned by farmers in the calendar year, 1980; and the percentage earned by PAYE workers in the same year.
549.
Written Answers. - National Income Statistics.
548.
asked the Minister for Finance the percentage of the national workforce made up of farmers and the percentage made up of PAYE taxpayers in the calendar year 1980.
I propose, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, to take Questions Nos. 547, 548 and 549 together.
Comparable data under the headings sought are not readily available. Tax statistics do not correspond fully with National Income and Labour Force Survey statistics. Moreover the coverage of PAYE statistics is incomplete. It must also be borne in mind that tax receipts in any year may be distorted by various factors.
As regards income tax, receipts in respect of farming profits amounted in 1980 to 2.5 per cent of total income tax receipts. It should be noted that, arising from a change in the due dates for payment of income tax, the income tax paid by farmers in 1980 represented one-and-a-half years' tax. The corresponding figure for income tax collected through the PAYE mechanism was 86.7 per cent. This figure is not the same as the tax paid on the wage and salary income of employees. In 1978-79, the latest year for which data are available, income tax paid on the wage and salary income of employees accounted for 74 per cent of total income tax receipts whereas PAYE receipts in that period accounted for 87.2 per cent.
With regard to incomes, incomes from self-employment and other trading income in agriculture in 1980 amounted to almost 10 per cent of national income while wages, salaries and pensions are estimated at 72 per cent of national income. The CSO figures for income in agriculture include income earned by persons who may not be classified as farmers and on the other hand do not take account of other income earned or received by those classified as farmers. The wages, salaries and pensions figure is based on National Income data as comprehensive information on the wage and salary income of PAYE taxpayers is not available from tax statistics.
With regard to the workforce, the 1979 Labour Force Survey showed that farmers represented 12.8 per cent of the total labour force and that employees accounted for 69.2 per cent. As has already been pointed out on a number of occasions, simple comparisons between proportions of national income received, and income tax paid, by different sectors is fraught with difficulties, the main ones being that national income includes income which is not subject to income tax but which may be subject to other taxes such as corporation tax and that PAYE income tax yield covers more than the tax paid on the wage and salary income of employees.