Smart Taxes Network Documents

The purpose of the Smart Taxes project is to develop policy options to reform fiscal and other financial and monetary mechanisms in Ireland to deliver environmental, social and economic sustainability. See www.smarttaxes.org for more information .

A Green Job Guarantee For Ireland

What would happen if, instead of the European Central Bank providing liquidity to private banks in order to ward off financial collapse, it provided funding to mobilise a green workforce to tackle urgent environmental challenges? The salaries would effectively transfuse local economies and the scheme has precedence in the Common Agricutural Policy which already pays farmers to protect the environment. This Irish adaptation of the Job Guarantee developed by Modern Monetary theorists in the US is proposed by Emer O'Siochru in an article on the Smart Taxes Network website.

Site Value Tax: taxation for a sustainable society

The land market currently distorts our economy. Unlike investment into tools, machinery, computers, new factories and capital equipment, greater investment into landholdings creates no new wealth. An annual Site Value Tax on the value of zoned land would help build a sensible and realistic land market, encouraging landowners to develop and maintain their land or release it for sale. Smart Taxes has just released a brochure which provides a clear overview of how such a tax could be implemented in Ireland, as well as the improvements it would bring about.