Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Thirty-second TikTok again. We examined the whole thing and identified some areas where damage to the economy could be minimised. What we found was that the measures were extremely unpopular politically. Inheritance tax provides a classic example. Increasing inheritance tax would have almost no negative impact on the economy but, obviously, the political implications are very dangerous. Increasing property tax would have a very minimal impact on the economy. Again, this would be politically unpopular. We did think about a site-valuation tax as an alternative to a property tax. It could be a partial replacement of the property tax and, potentially, commercial rates or commercial rates in particular. We talked about getting rid of many tax breaks and tax expenditures because many of them were distortive and regressive. If one cleaned out the system, one could actually cut taxes in other areas or increase public expenditure. It is more about cleaning out the system of all the special sweetheart deals we have for particular groups. If this were done, it could raise billions of euro for the Exchequer and do almost no damage to the economy.