Building a Fairer Taxation System: The Working Poor and the Cost of Refundable Tax Credits

Abstract

This study addresses two key issues in Irish social and economic policy. These are: (i) the need to reform and develop our taxation system so that it becomes fairer and; (ii)the need to address the issue of the ‘working poor’ where many individuals and their dependents, despite being active in the labour market, receive an income that is insufficient to take them above the low-income threshold as represented by the poverty line. It does so by proposing the introduction of a defined system of refundable tax credits.