Comments on: Bold economic leadership… from the Opposition

By: Thomas

Thomas — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:04:21 +0000

Also easier for the richest in society to even better their already rosy lifestyles when accessing the high end food clothes & everything else, & thus widening the gap between the rich & poor.

By: millsy

millsy — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:30:35 +0000

And what about the free DVD player with the $200 bunch of bananas?

By: felix

felix — Fri, 07 May 2010 00:16:59 +0000

And why is that a problem?

I mean I can think of a few problems in a very broad sense, but within the bounds of this topic, what is the problem with making it easier to buy Ferraris at the same time as making it easier to buy food, clothes, and everything else?

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:59:13 +0000

The problem with pulling GST back to the original 10% is that it would make it more attractive & affordable for the wealthy when they make purchases on expensive items such as a new lamborghini or ferrari etc etc.

By: Lanthanide

Lanthanide — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:43:25 +0000

Restaurant meals are food, but that has no bearing on what the final policy will be. Labour have broadly indicated that they might drop GST from food. What their eventual policy is likely to be is “GST off food excluding prepared meals at restaurants and takeaway places”.

You know that the government has complete sovereign control in NZ, and there isn’t any formal constitution that blocks them from doing whatever they want, right? There’s no reason they can’t make a law that targets food sold only by grocery stores and not food sold at restaurants, the only question is how many loopholes will be left, how easy those loopholes are to identify and exploit and how easy they are to close.

By: Herodotus

Herodotus — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:53:35 +0000

RR Please do not take it that ALL food will be exempt. There is a chance nad refer Jenny 6:16 re Maori idea that it is limited to healthy food. Then letthe horse trading begin as to what is healthy. Rememer Lab/Progressives intro a tax on drink exceeding 14% to reduce alco pops what happens alco pops reduced their %. Re healthy food is Weetbixs ok how about cocopops . If cocopops sugar/salt is over a % then just reduce the % to marginally under simple, yet if maybe of still”unhealthy”. Me thinks a wasp nest is being upset, unless there are some extremely wise people in communicating this policy or leaving the small print to post the electon. It has happened before by all.

By: Red Rosa

Red Rosa — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:09:43 +0000

Dead right millsy. Presumably restaurant meals count as ‘food’ – hard to see why not. An upmarket CBD ‘business lunch’ would feed a family for a week. Both get GST off. This idea should have been buried years ago.

By: bahandhumbug

bahandhumbug — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:06:10 +0000

“the more you earn the more tax you should pay”

Isn’t this the way it works at the moment ?

By: millsy

millsy — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:52:18 +0000

GST off food.

If this is the best that Labour/the left can do, then they are very much in trouble. The benefit of removing GST from food would be minimal, but the costs will be huge, and we would have a lot of unintended concequences (such as the rich buying GST free pate and caviar – or free ipods with that $350 bag of oranges). Far better to pare it back to the original 10%, with a tax free bracket, paid for by soaking those at the top (the more you earn the more tax you should pay), or even aboloish it altogether…

But for the moment, from me the message is: go away and try a little bit harder.

By: Ari

Ari — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:51:24 +0000

Land shouldn’t be owned by people who don’t live and work on it. It ought to be about a sense of personal connection and obligation to tend for things, not commodification.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:54:40 +0000

Removing the GST on food will be a welcome, positive & progressive move if Labour implements it giving the chance.
Many are asking how the lost revenue from the implementation of this policy will be be collected, there are many ways but I’ll give you a couple now, simply increase the tax accordingly on alcohol & tobacco,
The problem with GST on food items at the moment is that a beneficiary pays the same for a pound of butter as does a wealthy person.

By: Jim Nald

Jim Nald — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:31:19 +0000

Did he?

That would be the same kind of argument about shifting his brains into his rear.
Or moving his large intestines to the frontal lobes of his cerebral cortex.
Then the country won’t need any major policy thinking.

By: Draco T Bastard

Draco T Bastard — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:16:09 +0000

We, as a country, actually have enough energy from renewable resources – if we don’t increase our population.

By: Draco T Bastard

Draco T Bastard — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:14:22 +0000

Or Wellington needs to be abandoned.

By: Draco T Bastard

Draco T Bastard — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:13:31 +0000

Hopefully they will apply this same rule to student allowance and other benefits.

We can hope but, as this is the party of capitalists for capitalists and screw everyone else, I’m not holding my breath.

It also completely puts paid to their “no-one pays the top rate because they hide their money in trusts’ excuse for dropping the tax rate from 38% to 33%.

Considering that their whole existence for being is to cut tax rates for the rich I’m sure that they’ll manage to ignore such facts quite well. After all, they ignore facts that go against their ideology all the time so ignoring another couple won’t be an inconvenience at all.