Advertisement
Written By: John A - Date published: 11:25 am, February 5th, 2010 - 29 comments
The Tax Working Group’s summary presentation at their December seminar came from a senior partner from one of the Big 4 accountancy firms, Price Waterhouse. One scenario for the preferred ultimate outcome aligned income, trustee and company tax at 27%, paid for by increasing GST to 15%. At the top: Big change The graph tops …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 14th, 2009 - Comments Off
Over at Public Address Keith Ng has a great post up on Labour and National’s tax regimes. Pretty graphs, accessible analysis and a DPF slap-down – what more could you ask for?
Written By: the sprout - Date published: 11:32 am, April 5th, 2009 - 26 comments
The Herald reports: Last week John Key used poor United States sales of the new BMW 7-series – 10 were sold in February, compared with more than 1500 in the same 2008 month – as an example of how much other countries were hurting in the economic crisis. But New Zealand… sales of the top-of-the-line …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 10:01 am, March 2nd, 2009 - 2 comments
No surprise to see The Herald editorial still running National’s lines. Now that Key’s equivocating on National’s planned tax cuts Granny’s right in behind him – despite their previous convictions. From October last year, an editorial from The Herald titled Overdue, but tax cuts timely: If [the tax cuts are] viewed widely as overdue and …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 9:47 am, May 26th, 2008 - 40 comments
With a loving smack that would have brought a smile to Bob McCoskrie’s face, the Herald‘s editorial today rebukes John Key in the strongest terms it can. Now that the Budget is behind us, the National Party has less excuse for indecision on most of the important economic issues facing the country at the coming …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:30 pm, May 22nd, 2008 - 36 comments
From John Armstrong in The Herald: Is it enough? Michael Cullen has given it his best shot. He has been about as generous as he could be. He and his Labour colleagues will not die wondering what might have been had the Finance minister’s tax cuts been bolder. He could not have been bolder without …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:57 am, May 20th, 2008 - 57 comments
See that line that says minimum wage? Nearly half of kiwis earn less than that. Seven months ago, that was me. I was working removing asbestos contaminated glue from the floor of an office building along with half a dozen other guys. Now, asbestos is pretty dangerous stuff, inhaling a single thread of it can …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:34 pm, May 13th, 2008 - 139 comments
Rodney Hide is calling for the Budget’s tax cuts to take the form of raising the thresholds to account for inflation since 1999, removing of the 39 cent bracket, and a $10,000 tax-free bracket. What would ACT’s tax cuts entail for New Zealanders? Hide says the average cut would be $50 a week, so we …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 29th, 2008 - 4 comments
Some may have noted an odd series of questions in Parliament and press releases from Bill English around government borrowing over the last month. The questions purposely conflated the idea of maintaining current debt levels with increasing debt. We noted this at the time and Tane correctly picked the strategy: First, sow confusion about debt …
Written By: sparkie - Date published: 9:00 am, April 29th, 2008 - 30 comments
Scrapping GST is a classic, populist issue that sounds delicious in times of high food prices but at closer inspection – it doesn’t taste good at all and isn’t the best way to help those struggling to buy food. The cost of food and fuel has dominated the media over the long weekend and there …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 12:40 pm, April 28th, 2008 - 12 comments
Peter Dunne is once again touting his plans to introduce income splitting. It’s a policy aimed at helping out the wealthy. New Zealand Institute of Economic Research senior economist Patrick Nolan tells us that “80% of the tax gains of income-splitting would go to the top 20% of taxpayers”. Dunne was reportedly “not bothered” by …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 9:44 am, April 23rd, 2008 - 34 comments
The junior doctors’ strike is a difficult issue. On the one hand, these are highly valuable workers whom we can’t afford to lose overseas and they do work long hours in difficult conditions. On the other hand, the pay rise they want would cost $50 million and is well above what other medical professionals have …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:45 am, March 28th, 2008 - 12 comments
If National are so keen to cut taxes and so critical of the Government for not doing so earlier, why are they being so tight-lipped about how they would cut taxes and even the size of their cuts? Because the Budget has them trapped. Labour plans to announce its tax cuts in the Budget, probably …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 9:33 am, March 26th, 2008 - 11 comments
This morning on Breakfast, John Key repeated his line that capping the size of the core public service (that includes planning staff for health, prison guards, and the human rights commission) at current levels would ‘save $500 million over three years that could be used for more ‘frontline’ staff and tax-cuts’. Leaving aside that it’s not …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 9:30 am, March 25th, 2008 - 9 comments
Regular readers will remember that one of John Key’s excuses for he ‘we would love to see wages drop‘ quote was that the reporter had misquoted him. Now, Key has once again shown a disturbing trait of attributing his own mistakes to others. When asked about the possibility of moving National’s tax cut programme forward …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 1:44 pm, March 18th, 2008 - 9 comments
Check out this groovy little gadget. You put your money in the slot and it gets counted, with the power of ‘digital’! Maybe we could all chip in and get one for the IRD. Seriously though, quite a cock-up on the IRD’s behalf, using the wrong figures so tax revenue was undercounted by $600 million …
Written By: Dancer - Date published: 3:04 pm, March 13th, 2008 - 26 comments
From the ABC site: “A peak business group says the Federal Government’s promised tax cuts should be taken into account when deciding on an increase to the minimum wage. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry is proposing a rise of $10 to $11 – in line with last year’s increase. The ACTU is lobbying for …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 5:17 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 13 comments
Days after saying ‘we’ve always said, we aren’t that worried about, um, whether the Crown needs to borrow a bit of money [for a] programme of tax cuts’ Bill English has accused Michael Cullen of ‘um, ah, borrowing for tax cuts’. What English’s researchers have discovered is that the amount of Government Bonds on issue …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:10 am, March 4th, 2008 - 89 comments
The government has made a series of moves to prevent strategic New Zealand assets being exploited by foreign companies. Last week tax law was changed to prevent the Canadian Pension Fund avoiding tax in its bid for Auckland Airport. Yesterday, the government changed the Overseas Investment Act to give Ministers veto power when strategic land …
Written By: Dancer - Date published: 10:18 am, February 28th, 2008 - 13 comments
One consquence of the expectations around tax cuts is an examination of some of the policies already have in place – Working for Families for example. This was the topic of a recent article from Ruth Laugesen in the Sunday Star Times. “Coopers chairman John Shewan said that under Working for Families, many households effectively …
Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 10:46 am, February 20th, 2008 - 96 comments
“We would love to see wages drop”. You would think that given the simmering debate about our wage gap with Australia at the moment that would be the last thing you’d expect to hear from the leader of the National Party. Especially when he’d gone on record in the national media just a week ago …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 4:31 pm, February 13th, 2008 - 1 comment
Jenny Russel of the Guardian writes, “As the middle classes feel the pain of comparison with the super-rich, we lose all enthusiasm for the common good”. The rise of the super-rich, and their capacity to outbid others in the competition for houses, schools, space and possessions, has produced a new definition of success. It is …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 3:53 pm, February 13th, 2008 - 32 comments
Both the Labour-led government and National have promised income tax cuts to follow the government’s family and business tax cuts. Neither has given any details except there will be multi-year programmes of cuts. The point of difference is that Labour has four conditions that their cuts will satisfy while National rejects those conditions. So in summary, their positons are …
Written By: John A - Date published: 3:44 pm, February 12th, 2008 - 2 comments
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan has announced that he intends to lift the target for the budget surplus, so that fiscal policy can help ease upward pressure on interest rates. He will proceed with tax cuts announced in the election campaign, but according to The Australian newspaper his comments signal that there is unlikely to be …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 11:53 am, February 12th, 2008 - 10 comments
John Key tells us that he would cut ‘wasteful government spending’ to pay for upper-bracket tax cuts bigger than Labour’s cuts. But do the facts match the rhetoric? Remember National’s wastewatch website? It listed $900 million in ‘waste’ since 1999 only 0.2% of government spending, which won’t pay for many tax cuts. And most of …
Written By: Steve Pierson - Date published: 10:18 am, February 11th, 2008 - 94 comments
Four associations representing wealthy New Zealanders are saying tax cuts should be in the form of making the top tax rate 30 cents in the dollar. Wouldn’t that mean that their wealthy members get huge tax cuts while the 85% of us earning less than $60,000 will get none or very little? Why, what a …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:38 pm, February 7th, 2008 - 53 comments
In a speech today to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce Cullen has further differentiated the role of tax cuts under National and Labour. What was interesting about Cullen’s speech is that it wasn’t really a speech about tax cuts. It was a speech about (much broader) economic sustainability. Essentially it pitted National’s vaporware ‘tax cuts’ …
Written By: Tane - Date published: 10:15 am, February 5th, 2008 - 56 comments
News that 28,000 New Zealanders left for Australia last year has Business NZ, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Party predictably calling for tax cuts as the solution to New Zealand’s wage gap with Australia. Of course, they know very well that tax cuts are not the answer. Workers in Australia currently earn 30% …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 2:55 pm, December 18th, 2007 - 43 comments
From Stuff: Cullen said “uncertainties” still existed, but Treasury had “significantly” lifted its revenue forecasts which meant the $1.5b in tax cuts in addition to more spending could be factored in to the budget. “This figure is very soft as no decisions have been taken on the timing, size, shape or scope of our personal …
Written By: all_your_base - Date published: 1:49 pm, December 17th, 2007 - 6 comments
From the site: “The only two universal truths. Death and Taxes. Entitleme is an effort to deduce an individuals effective tax rate. The difficulty in calculating an effective tax rate stems from defining what is or is not a tax. My current thinking is, “if you don’t pay it you go to jail” it is …
Comments