According to the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI), property taxes should be raised drastically to diversify tax revenue sources and to address issues of rising wealth inequality. As the government prepares its 2020 budget for 2020, increasing property tax is considered.
The trade union affiliated think-tank proposed ideas that represent a major shift in the tax system and the Government has always manages to neglect changing property taxes because of the associated political unpopularity.
Currently, the Government collects much less property tax revenue than most other European Union countries. Revenue from property taxes equates to only 23.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), while the average tax revenue in the EU amounts to 38.9% of GDP. In comparison with the rest of the EU, Ireland is much more dependent on VAT and excise tax revenues. VAT and excise tax generally have a greater negative impact on the less well off than the impact on wealthy.
Property taxes are the most difficult for the extraordinarily wealthy to avoid according to NERI’s senior economist Tom McDonnell. He continued to denote that underlying assets …