Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We are not in favour of taxing the family home in our wealth tax proposal. We are very explicit. We are in favour of taxing the wealth in excess of €1 million in the hands of a small group of people. I will put it another way to the Minister. We have approximately 2 million workers, and the Minister can confirm the numbers. Last year, between them they earned €130 billion but they paid €27 billion in tax. The corporations earned €203 billion in pre-tax profits and paid €11 billion in tax. In other words, the corporations made twice as much as 2 million workers in profit or income, whatever way the Minister would want to put it, but paid half as much tax. Where is the justice in that? The wealthiest group saw their wealth very significantly increase by approximately €50 billion last year. Should they not pay a bit more tax?

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