Lunch
Chicken fillet roll
The humble deli counter benchmark.
* Assumes a prepared deli item charged at the 13.5% hospitality rate.
Where your earnings go
16 min of work
What could the state buy with this tax?
Very rough scale comparisons, not earmarked spending.
Public service
3 minutes of nurse time
Welfare
0.1 days of Jobseeker payment
Mega project
0.00000012% of Children's hospital
Additional detail
Show the tax line items and model assumptions.
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Additional detail
Show the tax line items and model assumptions.
State-equivalent assumptions
These are order-of-magnitude comparisons used for the state-scale cards.
Purchase tax detail
Income tax detail
What this model leaves out
These are illustrative direct taxes only. The model does not estimate supplier VAT, corporate tax, employer PRSI, import duties, local charges, discounts, deductions, pension contributions, or product-specific reliefs. It is meant to make the time trade-off legible, not to produce a tax bill.
Income: single PAYE employee, 2026 illustrative PAYE, USC, and employee PRSI.
Time: 37.5 paid hours per week for 52 weeks, before holidays or unpaid time.
Purchases: direct transaction taxes are simplified and displayed beside each item.