Taxation policies in a time of uncertainty

Sir, – Expressing the view that as a country we “tolerate huge disparities in wealth and incomes” Jim O’Sullivan believes that his point can be verified by “a stroll down any city or town in Ireland” (Letters, August 15th). Even in theory, this isn’t a credible statement. One would need to take similar strolls down the towns of a large number of comparator countries, and dare I say, gather some sort of data, to meaningfully assess any such hypothesis. Fortunately there are organisations who do just this sort of thing.

A report on inequality in the Economist in 2016 found that Ireland did more than any other country studied to offset income inequality. It cited the IMF, OECD and our Central Statistics Office as sources for their raw data. The equality, or lack of it, was measured by Gini coefficient, a widely cited and easily understood measurement.

While Mr O’Sullivan may hold to his view that “we must share what we have more fairly”, it would seem we are in fact performing better than anyone else is in this regard, objectively speaking. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN O’BRIEN,