IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp549.html

Scenarios and Distributional Implications of a Household Wealth Tax in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Lawless, Martina
  • Lynch, Donal

Abstract

This paper uses recently available information on the composition of household assets and liabilities to examine the impact of a tax on household wealth in Ireland under a wide range of assumptions on how such a tax might be designed. We compare results based on models of existing taxes on household wealth across Europe and a number of hypothetical scenarios to illustrate how the results are affected by varying qualifying thresholds or asset exemptions. We present revenue estimates and calculations for the percentage of households that would be liable for different qualifying thresholds, tax rates and exemptions for specific assets, such as the household main residence and farms. For each scenario, we further examine characteristics of affected households in terms of their income decile and demographic characteristics. Due to the imperfect correlation between income and wealth, we find that in almost every scenario, a non-negligible proportion of the tax would be collected from households in the lowest income deciles.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawless, Martina & Lynch, Donal, 2016. "Scenarios and Distributional Implications of a Household Wealth Tax in Ireland," Papers WP549, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp549
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/WP549.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawless, Martina & Lydon, Reamonn & McIndoe-Calder, 2015. "The Financial Position of Irish Households," Quarterly Bulletin Articles, Central Bank of Ireland, pages 66-89, January.
    2. Marius Brülhart & Jonathan Gruber & Matthias Krapf & Kurt Schmidheiny, 2016. "Taxing Wealth: Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 5966, CESifo.
    3. Diarmaid Addison-Smyth & Kieran McQuinn, 2010. "Quantifying Revenue Windfalls from the Irish Housing Market," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 41(2), pages 201-233.
    4. Glennerster, Howard, 2012. "Why was a wealth tax for the UK abandoned?: lessons for the policy process and tackling wealth inequality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 42582, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Watson, Dorothy & Maître, Bertrand & Russell, Helen, 2015. "Transitions into and out of Household Joblessness, 2004 to 2014: An Analysis of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS)," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT296.
    6. Åsa Johansson & Chistopher Heady & Jens Mathias Arnold & Bert Brys & Laura Vartia, 2008. "Taxation and Economic Growth," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 620, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thor O Thoresen & Marius A K Ring & Odd E Nygård & Jon Epland, 2022. "A Wealth Tax at Work [Behavioural Responses to a Wealth Tax]," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 68(4), pages 321-361.
    2. Lawless, Martina & Lynch, Donal, 2017. "Gifts and inheritances in Ireland," Papers WP579, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    3. Ireen Choga & Fiyinfoluwa Giwa, 2023. "The Effect of Property Tax on Income Redistribution in Selected African Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ces:ifodic:v:16:y:2018:i:2:p:50000000002758 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Boysen-Hogrefe, Jens & Braml, Martin & Mosler, Martin, 2020. "Finanzierungsoptionen für die zusätzliche Staatsverschuldung durch die Corona-Krise: Ist eine Vermögensabgabe zweckmäßig?," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 314953, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    3. José Félix Sanz Sanz, 2026. "Reflexiones sobre el sistema fiscal español: notas para un debate necesario," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2026-01, FEDEA.
    4. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Dynamic Taxation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 801-831, August.
    5. Matthias Krapf & David Staubli, 2020. "The Corporate Elasticity of Taxable Income: Event Study Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 8715, CESifo.
    6. Nina Hetzer & Andreas Peichl, 2010. "Steuerstrukturreform trotz leerer Kassen?!," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 63(01), pages 28-35, January.
    7. Bird, Richard, 2010. "Taxation and Development," World Bank - Economic Premise, The World Bank, issue 34, pages 1-5, September.
    8. Mr. Takuji Komatsuzaki, 2016. "Improving Public Infrastructure in the Philippines," IMF Working Papers 2016/039, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Langenmayr Dominika & Mittermaier Ferdinand, 2021. "Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften, nachhaltig finanziert: Herausforderungen für die Politik in den 2020er Jahren," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 22(3), pages 176-190, September.
    10. Kristoffer Berg & Mr. Shafik Hebous, 2021. "Does a Wealth Tax Improve Equality of Opportunity? Evidence from Norway," IMF Working Papers 2021/085, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Henrik Kleven & Camille Landais & Mathilde Muñoz & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 119-142, Spring.
    12. Rieth, Malte & Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Attinasi, Maria-Grazia, 2016. "Personal income tax progressivity and output volatility: Evidence from OECD countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 49(3), pages 968-996.
    13. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Attinasi, Maria Grazia & Rieth, Malte, 2011. "Labour tax progressivity and output volatility: evidence from OECD countries," Working Paper Series 1380, European Central Bank.
    14. Julia Cagé & Malka Guillot, 2021. "Is Charitable Giving Political? Evidence from Wealth and Income Tax Returns," Working Papers hal-03877993, HAL.
    15. Bénétrix, Agustín S. & Lane, Philip R., 2013. "Fiscal cyclicality and EMU," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 164-176.
    16. Lydon, Reamonn & Lozej, Matija, 2018. "Flexibility of new hires’ earnings in Ireland," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 112-127.
    17. Lu, Kelin, 2022. "Overreaction to capital taxation in saving decisions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    18. Roberto Iacono & Bard Smedsvik, 2023. "Behavioral responses to wealth taxation: evidence from a Norwegian reform," Working Papers halshs-04423923, HAL.
    19. Zhu, Hui & Zhu, Steven X., 2017. "Corporate innovation and economic freedom: Cross-country comparisons," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 50-65.
    20. Chokri Terzi & Anis El Ammari & Ali Bouchrika & Khalil Mhadhbi, 2017. "Optimal Taxation and Economic Growth in Tunisia: Short and Long Run Cointegration Analysis," Working Papers hal-01541131, HAL.
    21. repec:ces:ifodic:v:16:y:2018:i:2:p:50000000002756 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Glogowsky, Ulrich, 2021. "Behavioral responses to inheritance and gift taxation: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp549. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Burns (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esriiie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.