tax

Categories under tax

The politics of greed

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, July 15th, 2011 - 84 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”?

Don Brash: Hypocrite on CGT

Written By: - Date published: 4:05 pm, July 14th, 2011 - 17 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.

Labour tax announcement coverage

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!

Taxpayers

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.

CGT or asset sales? Which do you prefer?

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, July 14th, 2011 - 107 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.

Australia: screaming backwards with CGT

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.

Key has cried wolf too often

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.

Key shoots himself in foot over CGT

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.

Holes in the too-hard basket

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.

Sweeping the board

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, July 10th, 2011 - 56 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.

Friday lolz

Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, July 8th, 2011 - 60 comments

Even Bill’s readers like the CGT…

Key walks into Labour’s CGT trap

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.

An outside view on CGT

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.

The housing market implications of capital gains tax

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.

Thompson gone, Garrett back?

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, July 7th, 2011 - 11 comments

The right’s leadership resembles a merry go round of disgraced old white failures. Brash, English, Shirtcliffe, Douglas had their time at the front, were disgraced. Now they’re back. Thompson was fired for his appalling behaviour but got a payout. He’ll be back in due course. While Brash says he’d welcome baby ID stealer Garrett back to Parliament.

Owning the agenda

Written By: - Date published: 6:03 am, July 7th, 2011 - 153 comments

Labour have started setting out a bold, fair and plausible policy framework for the election.  Rumours of their tax policy  have generated more interest and excitement than anything the National government has done in the last three wasted years.

Case for capital gains tax builds

Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, July 2nd, 2011 - 69 comments

In the Herald today, Mark Lister says the lack of investment in the productive economy is due to the favourable tax treatment of housing. On Thursday, Brian Fallow wrote how Kiwis are being shut out of home ownership by investors who see capital gain from housing as an easy win, and workers’ taxes effectively subsidise property investors who pay none.

Farrar’s tax cut chicanery

Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, June 24th, 2011 - 98 comments

The National Research unit has created National pollster David Farrar has taken time out of his holiday to create a graph showing the reduction in tax across incomes. Supposedly it shows National’s tax cuts weren’t for the rich after all – we just imagined it! But the research unit Farrar have avoided some inconvenient facts.

FTT Day of Action

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, June 18th, 2011 - 9 comments

Information about the 22 June Global Day of Action in support of the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT).

Key’s dodgy scheming

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, May 25th, 2011 - 22 comments

*Key says that we will get to vote on his Kiwisaver cuts in the election. Truth is, they passed the law last week and the tax credits are cut from July 1. *What’s up with the dodgy Kiwibank numbers? Plans for sale? *The govt is importing World Cup workers while 270K are jobless. *Key’s jokes falling flat with pissed off voters.

Creaming it?

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, May 18th, 2011 - 129 comments

The dairy industry produced 16 billion litres of milk in 08/09. The 17,000 dairy farmers got an average half million payout. So how come they only paid $26 million in tax in total? Are we meant to believe that the average dairy farm makes a million litres of milk for $5,000 profit? Rubbish. They’re creaming it.

Some are more equal than others

Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, May 16th, 2011 - 42 comments

As we wait to see just how bad the economy has got under National, and what cuts they will force on us to pay for their follies, Michael Bott’s reports on canvassing in Masterton: “I spent a weekend with a team of Labour volunteers listening to the concerns of the people. A repeated remark was, ‘‘ no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get ahead’’”

Krugman: The unwisdom of elites

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, May 15th, 2011 - 19 comments

Paul Krugman on the real reasons for the economic carnage.  Not social spending policies, but the daft economic policies of the right-wing “policy elites”.  Our focus should not be on slashing spending, but on National’s stupid, unaffordable tax cuts.

If only smiles were dollars

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, May 15th, 2011 - 38 comments

The minor party debate on Q+A was very interesting. Rahui Katene was self-contradictory and vague, like the Maori Party always is. Peter Dunne was pathetic. Roger Douglas slammed the government’s borrowing as did Russel Norman, who pointed out the other three had all voted for National’s debt-increasing tax cuts for the rich.

They cut, we pay

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, May 11th, 2011 - 49 comments

The Nats have run this country into the ground and say there’s no option but to slash Kiwisaver. The actual cuts they announce will be less than foreshadowed, and we will then be expected to be grateful. It’s the Nats’ old trick. But the reality is there’s no need for Kiwisaver cuts at all. Not while the rich keep the tax cuts National gave them.

Taking from Kiwisavers & giving to the rich

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, May 10th, 2011 - 81 comments

John Key has confirmed he intends to slash Kiwisaver to the bone by cutting the up to $1040 a year government contribution you get as a member. Of course, this is the savings budget according to National’s spin. They’re going to ‘encourage’ savings by taking that money from Kiwisaver and giving it to rich individual savers. It’s just more class war.

Choices: Tax cuts or teachers

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, May 2nd, 2011 - 65 comments

You’re the ruling government.  Which do you choose, tax cuts for 47 millionaires or salaries for 121 new teachers?  It’s not a hypothetical question…

Cleaning up after the royals

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, April 22nd, 2011 - 14 comments

Buckingham Palace cleaners aren’t even paid the London living wage while the British taxpayer will have to pay for the royal wedding cleanup. That’s one reason why I’m a republican. The Globe and Mail reports: “The cost of cleaning the streets of Westminster the day before the wedding is estimated by the council at $83,000.”

Spending cuts I’d like to see – No 1

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 pm, April 17th, 2011 - 33 comments

This Herald story about spin doctor Brad Tattersfield was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Ministerial offices of the Prime Minister, Judith Collins, Paula Bennett, and the Chief Executive of the Department of Labour to “minimise scandal” is one example of the sort of back-room spending of public money I’d like to see cut.

Economists line up on “Robin Hood” tax

Written By: - Date published: 9:16 pm, April 15th, 2011 - 31 comments

1000 economists have written to the G20, about to meet in Washington, and to Bill Gates, asking for a tax on financial transactions known as a Tobin tax after its originator, or a Robin Hood tax as it is known in the US. 4 New Zealanders are among the 1000; Prue Hyman, Stefan Kesting, Peter Conway, and Petrus Simons. Good on them.

On Hickey on tax cuts

Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, April 11th, 2011 - 24 comments

Bernard Hickey sets out the “theory” behind National’s tax cuts, and sums up the impact of the tax package as a whole: “Simply put, it’s not working”.

Why isn’t it working?  Well the fact that the theory is nonsense probably doesn’t help…

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.