Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 15th, 2011 - 61 comments
A better than usual interview of John Key by Guyon Espiner on Sundays Q+A. On the plus side Espiner was raising some serious issues. On the minus he let Key get away with his usual lies and evasions.
Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, August 12th, 2011 - 122 comments
Farrar and others of the Right push for ever lower taxes, but their arguments are laughably flimsy. Tax cuts don’t raise revenue. Tax cuts don’t cause growth. In search of their ”superior moral justification for selfishness” the Right are going to have to do a lot better than that…
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, August 10th, 2011 - 52 comments
There are some interesting comments in the Standard and Poor’s press release announcing the US downgrade. They say fixing debt isn’t just about cuts but raising revenue too. They also note the US difficulty in reaching a consensus on fiscal policy, and the looming demographic that will drive age-related spending. New Zealand should be taking note.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, August 5th, 2011 - 57 comments
It isn’t often that I find myself in agreement with Garth George. But he’s written a scorching indictment of right-wing greed that feels right at home here on The Standard…
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, August 3rd, 2011 - 36 comments
The neoliberal myth is that government economic policy doesn’t really matter, it can’t affect the economy – apart from being an anchor on growth. The truth is, government is the biggest actor in our economy. What it does matters. Bernard Hickey has listed 10 ways that the government could act to get the exchange rate down.
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, July 19th, 2011 - 21 comments
Associate Finance Minister Steven Joyce has dealt his government’s economic credibility a serious blow by attacking Labour’s costings of its fiscal plan and getting his own numbers wrong. David Cunliffe looks to be enjoying himself as he rips Joyce apart on Red Alert, in the Herald, and in the Dom. So much for Joyce’s dreams of succeeding English as Finance Minister.
Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, July 18th, 2011 - 61 comments
If you’re a blogosphere regular, you’ll have noticed that recently every monkey with a copy of the Fountainhead and a crush on John Key has been spouting the line that the top 10% of taxpayers pay 71% of net tax. Sounds incredible, eh? That’s because it’s not credible. It’s more cheap tricks from the Nats.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, July 18th, 2011 - 63 comments
I’ve been thinking about that lawyer Casey Plunket who threatened to leave for Australia over Labour restoring the 39% top tax rate at the stratospheric threshold of $150,000. It means a couple of thousand more tax for the wealthiest Kiwis. Would anyone really move countries over that? Do we need the kind of people that would?
Written By: - Date published: 6:29 am, July 18th, 2011 - 138 comments
The latest ONE News / Colmar Brunton poll is bad for Labour, and not great for the Left. But it isn’t a verdict on Labour’s CGT proposal – the polling period finished before the policy was announced.
Apparently the undecided in this poll was 14%. I wonder why that was missed out of the reporting?
Written By: - Date published: 10:23 pm, July 17th, 2011 - 101 comments
The Nats can’t tell us how much their asset sales policy will cost in lost dividends and sales costs, yet they’ve magicked up some numbers with all kinds of dodgy assumptions that supposedly show Labour’s tax package doesn’t add up. Well, I suppose they would know something about borrowing for tax cuts but their attacks on Labour aren’t credible.
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, July 17th, 2011 - 33 comments
The 90% of New Zealanders who don’t trade shares or own a second property suddenly wake up to the horror of a capital gains tax
Written By: - Date published: 4:15 pm, July 16th, 2011 - 113 comments
After two weeks of contradictory, panicked lines from National, the Right’s official critique of Labour’s CGT is “it’s a hodge-podge”. The Right, including Bill English and Don Brash, aren’t saying CGT is bad, they’re saying Labour’s CGT isn’t comprehensive enough. Why, then, don’t they campaign on a more comprehensive one? Maybe they were going to.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, July 16th, 2011 - 15 comments
In a comment yesterday on Eddie’s post ‘CGT or asset sales? Which do you prefer?‘, Matthew Hooton wrote “Where do I tick “I want both”?” Except for Nat sycophants, most righties acknowledge the need for a CGT. What should they do? Well, a little game theory shows that such a rightie should vote for a Labour-led government, this one time.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, July 15th, 2011 - 33 comments
At the same time as Phil Goff and David Cunliffe were unveiling Labour’s economic vision, Bill English was defending National’s in Parliament.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, July 15th, 2011 - 179 comments
The media have provided us with five people examples of people who will be affected in different ways by Labour’s tax package. Ordinary families win big and they know it. The vested interests moan and reveal the pure greed that underlies their worldview. Frankly, I think Labour will win support due to both who supports and who opposes its tax policy.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, July 15th, 2011 - 83 comments
In response to Labour’s tax proposals the Right is trotting out their favourite mindless catch phrase – “the politics of envy”. Should the Left fight fire with fire, and get stuck in to “the politics of greed”?
Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, July 14th, 2011 - 16 comments
It would appear that Don Brash has ideals – and when politically required, he has other ideals.
In fact he has so many ideals that his viewpoint on a Capital Gains Tax appears to veer all over the political landscape especially in his latest press release on CGT. At a guess his only real objection to a CGT is that he is not the person proposing it.
Written By: - Date published: 2:25 pm, July 14th, 2011 - 139 comments
Voters will see Labour oppositions on both sides of the world in a completely new light after this week. Phil Goff and Ed Miliband both took the bold step of taking on hitherto untouchable third-rail issues; capital gains tax in New Zealand and Rupert Murdoch’s pernicious monopoly media influence in England. Both leaders have turned the political landscape upside down and given voters a clear choice between the interests of the many and of the few. Go here for all the details. New Zealand is not for sale – game on for November!
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, July 14th, 2011 - 35 comments
According to Gareth Morgan, “all income should be taxed if it is a fair income tax”. So where are taxes coming from right now? Well increasingly more of it is being paid by wage and salary earners, and less by businesses. Hopefully a capital gains tax will partially redress that imbalance.
Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, July 14th, 2011 - 106 comments
Generally, no-one likes taxes, but Labour’s polling shows Kiwis are surprisingly receptive to capital gains tax. Head to head with National asset sales plan, the choice was clear: 55% prefer CGT vs 32% privatisation. In a contest of economic plans, Labour wins hands down. Even John Whitehead agrees. All English can do is scaremonger about the 35% debt ceiling.
Written By: - Date published: 1:51 pm, July 13th, 2011 - 57 comments
Russel Norman put a dagger into John Key yesterday in question time asking whether a series of national and international economic authorities really wanted to “put a dagger through the heart of growth” with a CGT. Key can waffle and whine all he likes, but he can’t avoid the truth of Australia’s enviable growth record with CGT.
Written By: - Date published: 7:06 am, July 13th, 2011 - 98 comments
Key used to get away with spouting whatever kind of nonsense he liked. Not any more. His hysterical scaremongering on the subject of capital gains tax seems to have been a step too far. The teflon is long gone, and Key has cried wolf too often.
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, July 12th, 2011 - 24 comments
Capital gains is a good policy that build’s the credibility of Labour’s economic and fiscal plan. Labour’s brilliantly run pre-launch has sparked interest and discussion. The destruction of John Key’s economic credibility has been a welcome side benefit. And it is a blow, Vernon Small points out, that Key has inflicted on himself.
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 pm, July 10th, 2011 - 6 comments
The Tax Working Group canvassed the many reasons why New Zealand should have a capital gains tax, before rejecting it by majority decision on the basis it was too complex and hard to administer. According to Auckland University’s Professor Craig Elliffe and Chye-ching Huang this is not borne out by the example of South Africa’s successful introduction of a CGT in 2001. Surely if the South Africans can make such a tax work our officials can too.
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, July 10th, 2011 - 54 comments
The genius of Labour’s (not yet official) capital gains tax is not just the policy itself but the way it has picked the public mood. Support has been near-universal. The Left loves the fairness aspect – workers won’t be subsidising landlords anymore. The Right loves the implications for capital allocation, interest rates, and the exchange rate. The Nats look isolated and hysterical.
Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, July 8th, 2011 - 60 comments
Even Bill’s readers like the CGT…
Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, July 8th, 2011 - 66 comments
It has been a rare and sincere pleasure to see National walk straight into a trap carefully laid by Labour. Goff and his team haven’t even publicly confirmed their capital gains tax policy but proponents to the Left and Right are winning the pre-launch media framing for them, while Key’s contradictory ranting is undermining his credibility.
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, July 8th, 2011 - 78 comments
Yesterday’s Morning Report interview with Sydney Morning Herald economics correspondent Peter Martin was a real gem. The picture of capital gains tax that emerges is one of simplicity, fairness, and closing loopholes. No wonder the Nats hate it.
Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, July 7th, 2011 - 126 comments
The landlords’ lobby group is making a lot of noise over Labour’s, still unannounced, capital gains policy. They say rents will go up, the supply of housing will fall, and it won’t stop house prices bubbles. Examining those claims shows that there would be little impact on rents while housing bubbles would be reduced and home ownership would be more affordable.
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