Tax Philosophy - Interactive Comparison
Compare eight ways of turning gross salary into tax, take-home pay, and working time. The stylised schedules start calibrated to the current Irish model at a EUR60,000 salary.
Gross salary on x-axis
Total tax divided by gross salary.
Benchmark
25%
All stylised schedules except no-tax start calibrated to the current Irish model at EUR60,000. Moving K intentionally changes the equal-purchase-time line so you can see how that assumption reshapes the curve.
Concordance point
25.2%
A single PAYE employee on €60,000 pays about €15,143 in PAYE, USC, and PRSI in this model.
The chart is a shape explorer, not a revenue model. It compares how different fairness rules distribute the burden across salaries after they are anchored to the same benchmark taxpayer.
PAYE income tax, USC, and employee PRSI using the site's 2026 assumptions.
A baseline where gross salary and net income are the same.
Everyone pays the same euro amount as the benchmark taxpayer.
Everyone pays the same average and marginal percentage.
The first EUR20,000 is untaxed; income above that faces a flat rate.
Everyone is guaranteed a minimum income. If earnings are too low, the tax number turns negative and tops them up.
For a given purchase, everyone contributes the same amount of working time to the state.
Net income grows with gross income, but only with elasticity alpha = 0.8.