The retail industry body Retail Ireland is confident that the retail sector will experience a significant recovery in 2014 and has requested individual income tax cuts to increase the spending power of the public and ensure that the public has more after-tax income to spend. Retail Ireland is suggesting that the threshold at which the higher income tax rate begins to apply should be raised and that the top rate of tax should be reduced to a level below 50 percent from the current 52 percent rate. The rate is currently a low way above the average individual tax rate for OECD countries which is 36 percent.
