In 2021, almost half (48%) of taxes were generated from taxes on income. This included income tax amounting to €23 billion and corporation tax of €15 billion.
Corporation tax receipts have almost doubled in the last 5 years from €8 billion in 2017 to €15 billion in 2021.
Taxes on products accounted for 28% of taxes, including VAT of €17 billion and excise duties of €6 billion.
VAT in 2021 showed a 30% year on year increase. However, the comparison with 2020 is impacted by COVID-19 restrictions which saw VAT receipts decrease by 16%.
PRSI generated €12 billion in revenue in 2021, up 12% on 2020 receipts.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today 23 November 2022 released Irish Tax Statistics 2021
Commenting on the release, Elaine O'Sullivan, Statistician in the Government Accounts Division, said: “Today’s release is based on the National Tax List (NTL) compiled by the CSO and transmitted to Eurostat. The NTL is based on the national accounts framework (European System of Accounts 2010) where taxes are compiled on a general government accrual basis. In simple terms this takes the cash-based Revenue Commissioners’ data and adjusts the timing of receipts to align with the time of activity. The data also covers a broader range of tax receipts such as Local Property Tax and local authority commercial rates.
Impact of COVID-19
Looking at the data, COVID-19 restrictions impacted some tax revenues in 2020 but in 2021 we see a return to more normal tax receipts. The total tax revenues for Ireland were €93.3 billion in 2021 (for comparison the cash-based Exchequer data showed €68.4 billion in 2021). This is an increase of 21% or €15.9 billion on 2020 total tax revenue receipts.
Taxes by Sector
Almost half of all tax receipts are from the taxes on income category; the largest taxes in this area are PAYE and corporation tax. There was €45 billion in revenue from taxes on income in 2021, this category has been increasing steadily since 1995 when €7 billion in receipts was generated.
There were strong revenues for taxes on products which include VAT and excise duties. The pandemic led to a decrease in revenues from such products in 2020 to €21 billion, but there was strong recovery in receipts in 2021 to €26 billion.”