Richard Boyd Barrett Calls for Targeting Multiple Properties in Wealth Tax Debate

Yeah, just I focused a lot on my earlier contribution on corporate tax and again in May, I know Social Ireland definitely are for wealth tax, I mean, what's the views on wealth taxes more generally on like the concentration of wealth, not just profits, because that's what corporate tax obviously relates to profits and corporate tax, but I think the central bank figures come out each year about wealth, you know, like, now I know a lot of it is property, but about 45, maybe nearly 50% of it is financial, and even property, you know, it gives you leverage, as they say, once you have an asset you can make more money, like, and so, yeah, just have you any opinions on a wealth tax, I mean, we've particular proposals, I see in some countries they have started to bring in wealth taxes, which I would have thought would, you know, would be, like, given the, do you think the concentration of wealth inequality is, like, growing all the time and is a problem, that's, I suppose, and that wealth taxes could contribute to trying to address, address that problem. Obviously it's, it's an issue in Ireland, obviously a lot of it's in housing, there are, there's a whole section in the Commission of Taxation and Welfare report on this, you know, there's recommendations there to be implemented, and actually it was one of the European Commission countries' specific recommendations last year to increase the revenue from wealth and capital taxes, and we haven't really made the progress, but there's a lot of options there, they just haven't been implemented, and that's the point, and it's one way of broadening, it's not going to resolve everything, like, the returns won't be enormous, but there, there are options there to do it. Can I come in on the wealth tax piece, because I did some research on this, now it's about 10 years ago, so the numbers are well out of date, but the, I think the general pattern of the holdings of wealth in Ireland is that the vast majority of it is in the form of property, property, and we already have a local property tax that brings in very small amounts of revenue, because it's designed to, you know, at a very small local charge, and at rates that weren't uprated as asset prices increased over the last, sort of, 10, 15 years. So there is, kind of, a specific way that you could increase revenues there without designing a whole new tax. The difficulty with a more general wealth tax is not a difficulty of principle, it's more a difficulty of, in practice, if people are holding wealth in financial assets, in cars, in, you know, it's very difficult to actually collect and value all of the assets that you want. So there is, there was a wealth tax in Ireland very briefly back in the 1970s, which was, kind of, abandoned after about two years, because it was so enormously complex, and had exemptions for various farmland, for housing, for all sorts of assets. I take this point, and I've heard it before, and I don't mean to cut across you, just, just, just, can I put this point to you, that with the, you see, I wouldn't be in favour, as you probably know, of increasing it on the principle of private residence, right? And, I think it's an imposition. But, the, the, the, the information that's gathered by revenue about the ownership of property, also, gives us information about people who own multiple properties, that aren't their principle of private residence. So, I think, what, is it, about 1.2 million, principle of private residences, is it? Or, no, it's probably less than that. Does anybody know? That's a lot more. Huh? Principle of private residences. Yeah, principle. Whatever the figure, whatever the figure is, there's a whole lot of that property wealth, is not principle private residences, and is, are actually assets owned by people who own multiple properties, which are generating revenue for them. Wouldn't it be fair to, kind of, tackle that aspect of it, rather than loading, loading taxes on the, uh, principle private residence? It would, but if those properties are part of the private rental sector, then you do, sort of, run the risk of those taxes being passed on in the form of increased rents on the, so there, it's very difficult to get a perfect. Not to be free rents. It's, it's very difficult to get a perfect, kind of, solution, in this case, without having, sort of, unintended consequences on other areas of the economy. Um, the local property tax was preceded by a tax initially that was only on non-principled private residences. Um, and again, that was, sort of, very narrowly focused on a much smaller base, and was brought in to broaden the base, and bring it in onto all properties in the country. Thank you very much.