Richard Boyd Barrett: Corporations Pay Same Tax as Workers

But just on the issue of wealth inequality and where all of this fits in, I'd just be interested to hear what people think. I mean, to what extent addressing that? Now, I see you mention tax, and again, I haven't studied it very closely, but a lot of the emphasis seems to be on income tax and increasing the proportion of income tax. No? No, sir. Okay, well, can I just make this point, and then I'll just hear you respond. I'm just doing some quick calculations here. There's 2.3 million people employed in this country, I think, approximately. The gross pay, is that right, roughly? I'm not sure I am. Okay. Gross pay is 108 billion a year, right? And that group of people pay 39 billion in tax, roughly. The companies' gross profits in this country are about 350 billion, more than three times what every worker in this country earns. How much do they pay in tax? How much do they pay in tax? Same amount, 39 billion. Right? So, proportionately, incredibly profitable corporations, mostly a very small number at the top, are making treble the profits that are doing three times as well as the workers and paying, you know, the same amount of tax. Isn't that the elephant in the room? Like, if we did something about that on the corporate tax end, and I know there's an argument, we can get into the argument, oh, well, they flood out of the country, and, you know, actually they didn't when we put it up to 15, and when we closed the double hours, they didn't actually flood out of the country, because maybe they're here because they need a labour force that speaks English as in the European Union, right? And particularly, if everything you're saying is true, which I think it is, even more, labour is the thing they're looking for. They're looking for people, right? So the idea they're going to flood off to a place I don't actually buy, but surely it kind of, that inequality in the distribution of wealth, which is increasingly going, as we know, like to a tiny number of billionaires on a global level, surely we have to start saying globally, as well as whatever we do domestically and whatever arguments there are domestically, that this is just not viable, it's not sustainable. For that much profit to be going to a tiny number of corporations and them paying so little of their income and tax compared to what working people are paying. So just... Move over to that. I know that's the argument. I'll let the witness's answer. Just be interested to what people think like. So maybe just a few things on that, Deputy. One, I suppose, in terms of our own recommendations, and so it's good to get clarity on this as well, what the Kairala asked about, you know, raising taxes. We need to get clear about the difference between raising taxes and raising our tax take, raising the overall amount of revenue that we generate. Obviously those two things are linked. There's no doubt about that. OK? But, you know, our key point here is about asking the question, if you have a tax take, the overall amount of revenue generated by the Exchequer in any given year, and you link that in a per capita basis to ask, OK, how much per person, broadly speaking, should you be collecting? That would mean that as population grows, as you have a changing population, you can then make projections based on population and therefore make projections based on those numbers, how much tax overall you should be collecting. Because obviously, if the population increases, the demand on resources is going to decrease, and that has to be paid for some way, shape or other. I totally take the point that you make about the impact that has on small businesses, whatever it might be. But, you know, as my colleague Michelle made the point, our point really is more about broadening the tax base and finding ways to generate that revenue and finding ways to generate revenue that is sensible, that doesn't hurt business, OK, but that nonetheless raises the revenue to ensure that our funding is there to pay for the things that we need to pay for. And therefore, it's not necessarily income tax, Deputy. And again, maybe for Deputy Timmons-Lake, we put that example in our submission to give you a picture of how income tax has changed as one example. But the emphasis here isn't on increases in income tax per se, the emphasis on broadening the tax base. And that's where some of the things that, Deputy, you mentioned do come in. And we would suggest that the Commission on Taxation and Welfare is the place to go where they provide a whole range of recommendations as to how we can increase our overall tax take, increase that taxes which are sustainable, and to do so in a way that is fair and equitable. And undoubtedly, there is a question with there about the level of taxation, sustainable taxation, that's paid by corporations. And, for example, with the minimum effective tax on certain corporations over a certain size that have been brought in through OECD reforms, we at Socialist Ireland would recommend that there should be a minimum effective corporation tax introduced for all corporations operating in Ireland at a reduced rate initially of 6% and then rising to 10%. So I think there is an argument made there for looking at how wealth can be taxed in addition to income, because obviously the more you tax income, the more you tax business, it has an impact. But fundamentally, our core point is about broadening the tax base to ensure that we are able to bring in the resources in a sustainable way that we need to fund all of these demands that are going to be in the future. And I think we should welcome the demands, because it's because we are living longer and we have a growing population, which is positive. But it has to be paid for.