THE NUMBER OF “super-rich” people who pay the €200,000 Domicile Levy each year has fallen to 13.

New figures provided by Tánaiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris show that the Domicile Levy generated just €2.07 million for the Exchequer in 2024 from 13 individuals.

Figures drawn up by the Revenue Commissioners show that the 13 paid an average Domicile Levy bill of €159,789.

The 2024 return on the tax compares to 18 “super-rich” paying the tax in 2023, generating €2.93 million in tax where the average bill was €162,828.

The levy was introduced in 2009 by then Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan as a means of getting non-resident and wealthy Irish tax exiles who paid little or no income tax to “make a contribution to the State, especially during times of economic and fiscal difficulty”.

The Revenue figures show that the tax has raised €43.4 million between 2010 and 2024.

Over the 15-year operation of the domicile levy, 308 individuals have paid the levy and the average pay-out since 2010 has been €140,924.

The return for the Exchequer reached an early peak in the year the levy came into operation in 2010 when 37 individuals paid an aggregate €4.8 million.

The following year 33 individuals paid €4.7 million but since then the annual return on the levy has topped €3 million on only three occasions.

Another former finance minister, Michael Noonan, removed a condition that only Irish citizens were liable for the levy “to ensure that individuals cannot avoid the levy by renouncing their citizenship” following a perceived disappointing uptake in the first two years.

The 13 to have paid the domicile levy in 2024 is the joint second-lowest number to pay the levy since it was introduced.

In a written Dáil reply to Labour TD Ged Nash, Harris said that the purpose of the domicile levy is to ensure that Irish domiciled individuals with substantial income and assets located in the State make a contribution to the Exchequer.

Commenting on the figures, Nash said: “It is extraordinary that the number of people paying this levy has more or less halved since it was first introduced back in 2010, especially given the appreciable increase in wealth in Ireland, since, and the growth in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the top 5% over that period.”

“This was always an imperfect way of obtaining a little more from those who have the most, and to say that the whole area of asset taxes is in need of reform from the point of view of fairness and tax equity is an understatement.”

Nash continued: “The 2021 Commission on Taxation and Welfare refers to the fact that the haul from the levy is ‘negligible’. The evidence shows they weren’t wrong in their analysis.”

In a written Dáil reply to Labour TD, Harris said that the purpose of the domicile levy is to ensure that Irish domiciled individuals with substantial income and assets located in the State make a contribution to the Exchequer.

He said that to be liable for the levy, an individual must satisfy all the following qualifying criteria: a gross worldwide income exceeds €1 million; owns Irish property greater in value than €5 million, and whose liability to Irish income tax in a relevant year was less than €200,000

While the levy comes to €200,000 a year, not everyone pays the full amount where a credit is available on any Irish income tax paid.

For example, if someone pays €150,000 in Irish income tax in a year, their liability to the domicile levy for that year will be just €5,000.