Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, September 29th, 2008 - 44 comments
Categories: Social issues, tax -
Tags:
If your annual income is over $14,000, your tax will decrease by $12 to $28 a week from Wednesday. That’s a reduction of up to 26% on the income tax you pay. By 2011, people will be paying up to 31% less income tax (graphs here). With boosts to Working for Families, many people with children will be paying no net tax (already the average tax paid by a single earner family with two kids is only 2%).
Funny, then that the actual amount of cash seems a little underwhelming to those on comfortable middle-class incomes. Funny because we’ve had nearly a decade of National basing its entire political argument around the need for tax cuts. Yet, now we have tax cuts, no-one seriously thinks they will be the panacea that National has made them out to be. National’s argument, of course, is that we just need to cut more, specifically for the wealthy (they have ruled out cutting the bottom rate any further). But if $1.7 billion worth of tax cuts this year, rising to over $3 billion a year by 2011, isn’t the cure to all our woes why would more make all the difference? It wouldn’t, of course. Tax cuts are not a solution to low wages, they are not the difference between people leaving NZ and staying, they are not compensation for inflation, and they never can be. And every dollar spent on tax cuts is a dollar that can’t go on health or education or, in the case of National’s cuts, a dollar that has to be borrowed on the turbulent international credit market.
So, what will you do with your tax cut? I expect all our friends on the Right who claim we don’t need a public welfare system because that’s the role of private charity will be keen to donate to a worthy cause. The Anglican Church’s quirky ‘give it up’ site has a number of good ideas for organisations you can give your tax cut to. For something less Christian-based, how about an environmental group like Forest and Bird, or a local community organisation, or even a political party, so they don’t have to turn to secretive wealthy donors?
Facebook
Twitter
Scoopit!
I’m going to have to give it to Infratil as its subsidiary Fullers is creaming off every Waiheke commuter’s tax cut. Plus we can look forward to higher residential rates and public spending since the ferries will be full of oldies who will be travelling free. Cheers, Winston, another reason to blow NZF out of parliament.
Go The Right,
Which last three polls? By my count you’re wrong, but you might about three different last polls.
Reference? My memory is that the polls were all over the place just before election day so Labour’s vote would have been up on some and down on others.
My Tax cut will be saved for a few months and invested in the share market, lots of Bargins!!! I don’t invest in the NZ market, thanks to Aunty Helen, but I do invest in the Aussie market.
In terms of Charity donations, as the old say goes, “If you do charity work and then tell everybody about it, its not really charity”
Well I was planning on uping my contribution to Kiwisaver. However, after MPs comments above I am going to buy some jet engines and Datsuns so that I can drunkenly race jetpowered Datsuns around a figure 8 circuit in my back yard while enjoying hookers and blow.
Brett: You don’t support NZ business because our elected leader is a woman? I’m struggling to find a correlation here…
Matt – that specific reference to jet engines opens up some awesome possibilities.
It makes me want one of these even more, and I already wanted one a lot. I mean if you had a slingshot launch system on your roof or something you could fire it up, and when noise control came to visit you’d have a real life honest to goodness opportunity to cackle “you’ll never catch me” as you light up and soar out over the harbour.
Ok, so maybe i just want to soar out over the harbour. Or those mountains in the vid would be pretty sweet.
I might spend my tax cut on one. Can you use cheese instead of resin in carbon fibre?
Better still why not send your comments directly to http://www.giveitup.org.nz
Burt and MP:
Yes, Yes they are.
There’s a reason pulse jets never made it in to the big time – they’re bloody noisy.
Typical Socialist: can’t you do arithmetic? I pay over $25k pa in PAYE – by my carefully considered calculation, I’m not getting a “…reduction of up to 26% on the income tax [I] pay”. I’m putting my ‘tax cut’ towards air fares. I say ‘Ditch the Bitch’!