Paul McGrath
Ceist:172 Mr. P. McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the ten most popular occupations or professions in respect of PAYE workers earning more than €200,000 per annum. [27361/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 3 November 2004
Ceisteanna (121, 122)
Paul McGrath
Ceist:173 Mr. P. McGrath asked the Minister for Finance the most popular occupations or professions in respect of self-employed persons earning more than €200,000 per annum. [27362/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí scríofa
It is proposed to take Questions Nos. 172 and 173 together.
I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the latest relevant sector-based information available on employees taxed under the PAYE system and self-employed persons taxed under the self-assessment system is derived from income tax returns filed for the income tax "year" 2001. It is not possible at present to provide the information sought for a more recent year if the data are to be reasonably accurate.
It should be noted that as PAYE taxpayers were charged to tax on their earnings in the period from 6 April to 31 December 2001 and self-employed taxpayers were assessed to tax for the short "year" on 74% of the profits earned in a 12 month accounting period, the numbers of cases with gross income exceeding €200,000 per annum may not be directly comparable with those of earlier or later years. The sector identifier used on the tax records is based on the four digit "NACE code (Rev. 1)" which is an internationally recognised economic activity code system.
On this basis the information requested is as follows:
|
Sector (economic activity code) |
Numbers of income earners with gross income exceeding €200,000 |
|
Employees |
|
|
Cases where no sector is identified (9991) |
756 |
|
Letting of own property (70.20) |
336 |
|
Medical practice activities (85.12) |
136 |
|
Architectural and engineering activities and related technical consultancy (74.20) |
50 |
|
Development and selling of real estate (70.11) |
43 |
|
Farming (190) |
41 |
|
Business and management consultancy activities (74.14) |
40 |
|
Other business activities (74.87) |
34 |
|
Accounting book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy (74.12) |
33 |
|
General construction of buildings and civil engineering works (45.21) |
32 |
|
Self Employed |
|
|
Legal activities (74.11) |
794 |
|
Medical practice activities (85.12) |
346 |
|
Cases where no sector identified (9991) |
313 |
|
Accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy (74.12) |
280 |
|
Letting of own property (70.20) |
170 |
|
Hospital activities (85.11) |
144 |
|
Architectural and engineering activities and related technical consultancy (74.20) |
118 |
|
Farming (190) |
79 |
|
Dental practice activities (85.13) |
70 |
|
Reproduction of computer media (22.33) |
54 |
‘Employees' and ‘Self-Employed' are classified for this purpose according to their main source of income.
The NACE codes are not essential for the assessment and collection of taxes and duties and the correct allocation and maintenance of these codes is subject to the limit of available resources. The economic sector breakdown on Revenue records is based on details which were recorded using information supplied by income earners or their employers at some point in the past. Some of that information may have been incorrect or misinterpreted in the first instance, or may not have been subsequently updated as necessary. For these reasons some of the economic sector codes on tax records are likely to be out of date or inaccurate and the reliability of the figures for the sectors currently provided will be limited to that extent.
A married couple who has elected or who has been deemed to have elected for joint assessment is counted as one tax unit and their incomes are aggregated in the statistics.