Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, May 18th, 2010 - 180 comments
Categories: Economy, tax -
Tags: john key
National are clearly starting to worry that the New Zealand public aren’t going to fall for their tax cuts for the rich swindle with Key trying convince Kiwis that they shouldn’t be jealous of rich people getting massive windfalls because we need those rich people:
We can be envious about these things but without those people in our economy all the rest of us will either have less people paying tax or fundamentally less services that they provide
That’s right, we should feel privileged to be able to give Paul Reynolds a tax cut of thousands of dollars a week. Otherwise he might decide he’s better off sacking workers and destroying vital infrastructure somewhere else.
Even more disingenuously he tries to claim that the rich who will get a windfall include nurses and principals. Unfortunately for him the Dom has a little table that shows they’ll get somewhere between 50c and $20 a week while someone on a half a million (not too far from Key’s government salary) will get over $300.
If it wasn’t so insulting it would be funny.
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It’s not about envy Mr Key – it’s about fairness.
And for starters, here’s how you could make GST more equitable, John.
Just levy it once – on the wholesale price.
Oops that would expose the excessive mark-ups some retailers put on the average P.A.Y.E. punter.
But it would also mean that we all paid the same amount of GST on any one item.
Why do I say that? Because the rich generally never buy retail. Neither do the self employed, for that matter.
The National government f’ckd up in the 90′s with the leaky home result. {Listen to Plunket vs Banks on Natrad just after 8am today, good entertainment}
It occurred to me that a years worth of tax cuts for the already weathly would go a long way to redressing this wrong.
They did contribute in a major way to this issue, yet it was not helped by Lab not admitting to that therre was an issue and adding to it with the aid of the Greens by pushing Kiln dried timber, and closing the link with BRANZ as a source of the problem. No one comes out of this looking any where near good. Another case of govts making a problem and then with the help of the following replacement govts compounding the issue. On Newstalk zb
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/thisweek/hourrecs/Tue,%20May%2018%2010.00%20trn-newstalk-zb-akl.asf
Jealousy
The foundation stone of all left wing political parties.
You want the rewards without the sacrifice or the hard work, suck it up lads, it is time that the real tax payers got to keep some more of their own money, many of us have had enough of paying for Labour’s election promises and seeing our hard earned dollars being wasted on welfare parasites and DPB bludgers.
While the tax rates should be lowered even further this is at least a start, next in line should be the elimination of so many useless government departments, then an all out attack on the social welfare system, if we do that then those who do want to better themselves will have a real chance of doing so, as for the parasites, well though luck for them, we can no longer afford to be ripped off by these low life.
Some might call it tough love, I prefer to call it reality, it is long overdue.
Sorry, but most would call it delusion.
Just as poison is like poison, depending on your country, so reality equals delusion depending on your politics
IrishBill, do you consider people earning $70,000, with a mortgage and a couple of kids, rich?
Why does this blog like pulling successful people down so much? I am on a low income at the moment but certainly have aspirations to make a lot of money eventually. You have to wonder about the self-esteem and occupations of many of the contributors on the blog, as all you seem content to do is tear down anyone even moderately successsful.
Very sad. The class warfare and politics of envy of this blog, and your funders the Labour Party, is the main reason we have the worst brain drain in the OECD.
Nick. A person earning $70,000 doesn’t get a tax cut when the 38% rate is reduced to 33%. It applies only to income over $70K.
And even if you’re on 100K, which is rich, it’s over 3 times the median income, you’re not getting much of a tax cut from this. The people getting the real tax cuts are the ones on hundreds of thousands, millions.
Our brain drain was never worst in the OECD, that was just a Key line (find me the authoritative source) and we don’t get any money from Labour.
And don’t think that just because people oppose tax cuts for the well-off they aren’t well-off themselves. I’ll bet Irish has lost more money on the horses than you’ll ever see my boy.
Amazing how the intolerant, jackboot sympathisers like Big Bruv and Nick commenting on this blog measure success in dollar terms.
Depending on the discussion, they would also class certain politicians as bludgers and wasters – I have often read them bemoaning the fact that the left members of parliament can hardly muster one successful businessman, yet in dollar terms they could clearly be classified as successful.
Just one day the people, those providing the labour and skills to keep the rich and powerful in the lifestyle they believe they are entitled to, might withdraw their labour en-mass – then we might see the true worth of money and perhaps a changing of the guard…
If anyone earning $70,000 per annum is finding it difficult to make ends meet they’re in urgent need of budget advice. I’m sure anyone on the dole, or on super, or on the DPB, would be able to show them hundreds of ways to cut down on unnecessary expenditure.
Of course, if National puts up GST tomorrow, as is predicted, just about everything will cost 2% more, which probably won’t help anybody. Here’s three words for you: High Tax National. Get used to them, because if GST goes up tomorrow, you’ll be hearing them a lot over the next eighteen months.
While I agree that it is a silly position to be in … hard up on $70T …. the problem is the position you have to maintain to earn $70T and the foolish expectations forced on people by their fellows in advertising and workmates. Charles Dicken had another part of it with his character talking about spending 19/6 or 20/6 when on an income of 20/-.
Two questions for you regular bloke/blokette righties, first time National voters, decent people working hard for your $50 – $70K and raising your families and waiting patiently for a bit of acknowledgment:
1. When the tax cuts are announced and you find out how much you’re really getting (after all this faffing around and nanny-state nonsense that you thought we were getting rid of), what do you reckon Johnny’s excuse will be this time?
Will it be a) “He meant North of 50 cents a week” ?
or will it be b) “He meant North of $50 a year” ?
2. Sounds like a ton of money going into Kiwirail, eh? As that other Rotten Johnny famously sneered, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
He meant Australian north.
classic.
He didn’t say “north of $50″ and his press secretary has rung and warned every reporter who has mis-represented him.
here is one version of the reported time he said it, from Stuff
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/449057
and from the Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10511339
and the more honest article off Scoop
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0805/S00337.htm
What you’re forgetting is that if you are facing south, then going north is going backwards. We just assumed that he was facing north when he made the statement.
It’s aspirational.
This Prime Minister refuses to accept that just because NZ is in the southern hemisphere that that means we are at the bottom. That sort of defeatist thinking won’t get us anywhere.
He has instructed Terramap to start printing the new, right way up, maps that will hopefully remove the unfortunate confusion some have had around these comments.
Did he not say it, or did he say it but not mean it? Either way I don’t recall much of an effort to correct it.
What was it he cancelled again?
I didn’t hear it so it doesn’t bother me what he said
high standards. kind of like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying ‘la la can’t hear you’
No just waiting for tomorrow so I can read it in the paper, though it will not unduely affect me because my income is below the ‘middle tax rate’ and we have been promised tax cuts to help bear the difference in GST. One of the good things about PAYE that the poor self employed and capitalists don’t get … the ability to adjust tax rates immediately for the workers.
It always amazes me the comments that arise when the Government mentions tax cuts and who will be affected. Irrespective of what one earns and what tax one pays, those who earn more already pay more tax than those who earn less, yet consume resources at the same level, for example:
Assume a flat tax rate of 20% on personal income.
Helen Clark earns $100,000 so pays $20,000 in tax.
Joe Bennett earns $30,000 so pays $6,000 in tax.
Both use the same roads, hospitals, schools yet Helen is paying proportionally more than Joe anyway but is continuously getting bagged because ‘she is not paying her fair share’, well I think she is more than paying her fair share.
That’s because we live in a society, Justin.
Your example also assumes that Clark does three and a third times as much work as Bennett. My observation of people earning annual wages similar to each of these figures indicate that this would be a very rare case.
Justin. Where does the money come from to pay for those roads, hospitals, schools, etc if you cut Clark’s tax? Do you put up tax on Bennett?
National’s answer is yes.
Most of the tax paid by the lower paid goes back to them in government subsidies .. it is a damm fool roundabout keeping public servants in employment … the ‘power game’ of the nanny state which both major parties have subscribed to for decades. There is something to be said for ACT’s policy to reduce both benefits and tax at lower levels … though being human I’m not sure there might not be a fish hook in it for me.