Dr. Eddie Casey:

To fair to the commission, it carefully considered what the impact would be in terms of inequality, the progressiveness of the tax and welfare systems and how these elements interacted. More than setting out a clear set of estimates of how much tax would be raised from its proposals, the commission wanted to set out a strategy and then let future Governments decide how much revenue they needed to generate using this strategy. The commission tried to design a strategy that was broadly growth friendly, where property and other things that did not move would be taxed. This would be more progressive and we could be reasonably assured that it would not be too damaging to growth and equality.