February 2016 11
T
he Oxfam Davos Report published on January
18 got relatively little media coverage here
and was buried after twenty-four hours. Yet
its content is truly shocking, pointing to a
world that is witnessing massive inequality
and an ever-widening chasm in the wealth of the big
majority of humanity as against that of a tiny elite. For
the first time in history the wealth of the richest 1% is
greater than the aggregated wealth of the remaining
99%.
This should be a central feature in the current General
Election campaign because it has huge ramifications
for global developments that will impact on Ireland but
also because chronic inequality is growing apace in this
State also. You wouldn’t think that from the statements
of the establishment political parties, nor from the
issues emphasised by the big-business-owned media.
In fact there is a concerted effort to not go there as seen
in the controversy around the so-called ‘fiscal space’.
The contrived debate on the fiscal space is really
designed to shut down any meaningful discussion on
what wealth exists here and how it should be shared
and managed. It wants to confine commentary to the
narrowest of parameters around an estimated €10 bil-
lion that will be available in extra public spending over
the next five years based on assumptions of a certain
level of economic growth.
What this shuts out is any opening up of a debate on
the massive wealth that exists outside of the current
parameters of taxation policy and practice. Hence we
have not only Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail focus-
ing obsessively on this, but Sinn Féin also chastising
the other parties for being ‘irresponsible’ in their
approach in exaggerating the amount available.
Excluded therefore is any consideration of the €30
billion in extra wealth that the richest 300 in this State
have garnered since 2010 according to the Sunday Inde-
pendent Rich List while the majority groaned under the
yoke of austerity. Excluded also are the massive profits
reaped by big business including the major multina-
tional corporations and the derisory tax that is levied
on them.
It is well known that the headline 12.5% corporation
rate is but a vague target. It would be very generous to
the corporations to say, as Eurostat figures do, that they
pay an effective rate of 8.3% but if we were to take that
as true, it would mean a very significant €2 billion each
year could be raised if the headline were insisted on.
Over five years that would immediately double the
‘fiscal space’. For every 1% increase after that there
would be an extra annual €500 million for public invest-
ment and services. This is not even to take account of
the work of Trinity College Associate Professor of
Finance, Jim Stewart, who told an Oireachtas Subcom-
mittee in 2014 that a massive €40 billion annual profits
of Irish registered companies lies completely outside
the tax net.
The Anti Austerity Alliance Budget Statement from
October 2015 outlines how massively increased
resources could be made available for major public
investment in areas like social and affordable homes
and greatly improved public services by taxing the real
wealth that exists. Where these extra funds could be
raised in addition to the corporation tax increased
intake, would be a ‘millionaires’ tax on wealth, an
increase in tax for individuals earning over €100,000
per year and a Financial Transactions Tax. Depending
on the rates applied, extra income of up to €10 billion
a year could be realised. In view of the Oxfam report
and the growing inequality in Ireland itself the debate
should urgently begin on national and international tax-
ation policy and the massive shift of wealth from the
1% to the 99%.
In the United States Bernie Sanders, describing him-
self as a democratic socialist, is generating major
political waves and massive support among working
people and the poor, with his call for a “‘political revo-
lution”. The Left in Ireland is the only force that is
attempting to inject similar ideas in to the election cam-
paign here. If the electoral initiative of the Anti Austerity
Alliance-People Before Profit achieves the requisite
seven Dáil deputies to form an official parliamentary
group in the next Dáil, that debate can be significantly
advanced here also.
€40 billion
annual profits of
Irish registered
companies
lie completely
outside the
tax net
Agenda for the Left:
address the 99:1 inequality
Let’s talk about equality
not fiscal space
by Joe Higgins
