Dr. Martina Lawless:

The recent Central Bank report on household wealth in Ireland showed that, for the top 20% of households in particular, properties other than the household's main residence were a large component of wealth. It also found that wealth inequality had decreased in Ireland because of rising property prices over the past number of years. There are still many issues to be considered, for example, what other assets people have. For example, there are business assets that one would not necessarily want to subject to a wealth take in case it had implications for entrepreneurship. There are other decisions to be made on whether there is a lower limit. There are many moving parts even with the design of a wealth tax. A simple 1% on all non-property assets would be difficult to implement.

As Mr. Barnes stated, we would welcome a commission on taxation examining the broad decisions that would need to be made on the design of the tax base and the interaction between a potential wealth tax with other taxes such as, for example, the local property tax and the capital acquisitions tax. There are many interactions between various taxes that would need to be considered before implementing one decision on its own.