Ireland's total tax receipts hit a record high of 59.3 billion euros (about 66 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019 , announced the country's Department of Finance on Friday, Trend reports citing Xinhuaş
The figure represented a 6.8 percent increase over 2018 and was 1.4 billion euros more than expected, said the department in a press release.
The better-than-expected performance in the country's tax take "will likely result in an overall general government surplus of 0.4 percent of GDP (about 1.5 billion euros) for last year," said the press release.
The Irish government aims to achieve a budget surplus of 1 percent of the country's GDP in 2022, which is equal to about 3.6 billion euros a year.
The growth in the country's tax revenue in 2019 was largely due to "a very strong corporation tax performance", said the department, adding that corporation tax receipts totalled 10.9 billion euros last year.
"Corporate tax receipts have more than doubled in five years, with a focus now on the sustainability of these returns, particularly given that a relatively small number of large multinational companies make up a significant chunk of the corporate tax take," said Peter Vale, a tax expert, in an interview with local media.(1 euro=1.117 U.S. dollars)