Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Absolutely. I thank the Minister for making my point for me. Only a tiny group of people has surplus wealth. That is critical. Only a very small group of people has surplus wealth. Most people have debt. That is what they have. The owe money. When income, wealth and assets are set against liabilities, for most of their lives most people are operating in negative territory. For a small minority of people, that is not the case. We are trying to get at the very small group that has extraordinary wealth. That is also linked to the fact that they have very high incomes, so they have surplus wealth every year that they can translate into wealth, as the Minister put it. That wealth becomes self-perpetuating. If someone has a lot of money, a million quid, it makes money for them. They just sit there and watch it accumulate. As the Minister pointed out, it is not just property. We understand the distinction, but the point is to get at that accumulated wealth.

The Minister says that for the majority of people the wealth they have is primarily made up of the family home. This is obviously by way of justification of the property tax. That is true for the majority of people but when one reaches the top 5%, or the top 1%, that is no longer true. Their family homes are a much smaller proportion of their overall wealth, which is made up of commercial property interests, big investments and cash. The purpose of a wealth tax is to capture that. Even on the most conservative assessment of wealth distribution, as the Minister has set out with the CSO report, if we accept that the top 20% - approximately 300,000 people - have 40%, a conservative estimate is that they have €151 billion, most of which is assets other than family homes. That is the point. One will find that the concentration is even greater when one gets to the top 10%, but with that top 20%, the €151 billion that they have consists mostly of commercial property or financial assets. If a 2.5% tax was put on that €151 billion owned by the top 20%, it would raise €1 billion a year.

They would still end up wealthier at the end of each year if a wealth tax at a rate of 2.5% were levied on them annually; it is just that the growth of their wealth would be slowed down. The average increase in the value of that wealth, accounting for investments, etc., is probably running at 4% to 5%. Those affected would still end up better off, but the accumulation and concentration of their wealth would be slowed down. It would be a very significant boon to the Exchequer. Why would the Minister not even consider opting for this, or even a measure that was a little more conservative? We suggest a rate of 2.5%, but even a slightly more conservative rate would result in a few hundred million euro. Why would the Minister not even consider this as a source of revenue rather than unloading a regressive property tax on those who cannot afford it?