Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage

10:00 am

Photo of Paul MurphyPaul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:
"CHAPTER 2

A Millionaire’s Tax on Wealth
Study on Introduction of a Millionaire’s Tax on Wealth

2. The Minister for Finance is to order a study be carried out on introducing a millionaire’s tax on net assets exceeding €1 million and is to report to the Dáil within six months of the enactment of this Bill on the findings of the study."

I will be brief because I have to attend an important meeting of the Dáil reform committee. This amendment is pretty clear. We are calling for a study to "be carried out on introducing a millionaire’s tax on net assets exceeding €1 million". We estimate, on the basis of the wealth figures from the Central Bank distributed according to the Central Statistics Office's household finance and consumption survey, that a millionaire's tax rate of 2% could raise €2.92 billion. In this amendment, we are calling for a study to be carried out so that we can see the figures involved and make choices about the kind of tax regime we should have.