overall meanstested family and education benefits seem to be providing a useful contribution to reducing inequalities given the high and rising incidence of poverty among children raising the meanstested child benefits is likely to be an efficient way to reduce child poverty the average effective income tax rate faced by the top quintile of the income distribution is around three times higher than for the bottom quintile and as a result the top quintile accounts for over two thirds of income tax payments figure income tax rates were increased in and and a comprehensive income tax reform in reduced the number of income brackets from to significantly increased marginal rates and reduction in tax breaks including for private education and health expenditures which are overwhelmingly consumed by betteroff households the elimination of these tax breaks is clearly a step in the right direction and it also makes the tax system simpler and more transparent the overall redistributive effects of these changes to income taxes are difficult to evaluate particularly the changes to personal income taxes