Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 11, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following:
“3. The Minister shall, within nine months from the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on options available for the introduction of a comprehensive asset tax otherwise known as a wealth tax, the report shall include options for the collation of data necessary for the assessment of such a tax, definitions of categories of wealth to be included in such a tax, proposals for the assessment and collection of the proposed tax and estimates of potential revenue raised at various rates of taxation.”.

This amendment calls for a report to examine the options of introducing a comprehensive asset tax, otherwise known as a wealth tax. I am not sure if the Minister has read the legislation, and the explanatory guidelines, I drafted the amendments based on the French model and those of some of the Scandinavian countries. It could not be introduced in the Dáil for the same reason I outlined earlier, namely, the prohibition on me or any other Opposition Member introducing a Bill that places a charge on the State but there is a need to look at this issue.
I understand the CSO is at an advanced stage with regard to collecting data on where wealth is held in this State. The big problem with introducing this, outside the ideological view that the Minister may be opposed to taxing wealth at those levels, is the issue of how much it would bring in and so on. Work has been ongoing by the CSO which I believe is coming to fruition soon. If the Minister or his officials were aware of that, that would be interesting to see.
It was mentioned earlier that we have seen wealth of Irish households increase by 10% in the past year. It is at €577 billion, but it is obviously not as basic as that. Much of that would be the recovery in house prices and so on, therefore, we need to look at where the wealth is, how it is broken down and whether it is in the hands of certain individuals or distributed evenly across society.
The report referenced earlier on wealth management in Ireland for 2014 suggests that the wealth per adult in Ireland is $209,000. I am not sure if many of my constituents would feel they have $209,000 of assets, and that is counterbalanced by about $71,000 in debt, so there would be a net effect of $140,000. If that is the case it is more likely that wealth is concentrated in certain hands and therefore we should be considering proposals to introduce a comprehensive asset tax. It would also allow for the repeal of the family home tax.
This amendment calls for a report to be laid out. I am hoping the Minister can inform us in terms of the CSO producing that type of information on where wealth is held in Irish society with the survey it has been doing for the past year and a half. I commend the amendment to the Minister.