Dr. Martina Lawless:

A number of years ago I did some work on wealth taxes, focusing on household ownership of assets in Ireland. It involved taking a number of existing wealth taxes from a number of different countries, including France, Spain and Switzerland, and looking at what revenue those wealth taxes would raise in Ireland, how many households would be covered and the total revenue that could be raised.

It was a technical exercise in how different styles of wealth tax would impact Ireland. Along with the debate on whether we should have a wealth tax and the role it would play, there are many variations in the designs of wealth taxes to consider. They would have significant implications in terms of how many households would be affected and how much money would be raised. For example, approximately 80% of household wealth in Ireland is in the form of property. Wealth taxes across a number of countries frequently exclude the household's main residence. That makes a major difference in terms of the number of people affected and the amount of money raised. The broader one draws the definition of wealth, the more money one raises, but also the more households one impacts. There are many decisions to be made on a wealth tax's design.