Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, March 1st, 2010 - 33 comments
John Key has promised to make tax changes that are revenue neutral, give huge payouts to the wealthy elite, and somehow mean the “vast bulk of taxpayers will be substantially better off”. But it’s a money-go-round. How you can make everyone better off with the same amount of money you’ve taken off them?
Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 51 comments
You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, February 24th, 2010 - 27 comments
Success for Opposition frontbenchers largely consists of embarrassing their opposite number by forcing them to answer questions they would rather not. Labour showed both how to do that and how not to do it in the House yesterday.
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, February 24th, 2010 - 67 comments
This man is Paul Reynolds, CEO of Telecom. He has overseen the largest corporate disaster in recent New Zealand history. The Nats are planning to give him over $6,600 a week in tax cuts. Apparently this screw up on a $7 million salary is the kind of guy New Zealand needs.
Written By: - Date published: 11:43 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 13 comments
Duncan Garner: “Key must get the compensation [for GST] right or there will be a backlash from voters” Problem is, you can’t get everyone to put some money in a bucket, give a large chunk of it to the rich and then compensate everyone else for what they put in with what is left. It can’t add up.
Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, February 22nd, 2010 - 19 comments
Bill English’s argument that cutting taxes for the few at the top can cause an economic step change has always been nonsense.
His appearance on Q&A yesterday simply confirmed it.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 am, February 19th, 2010 - 21 comments
An interesting piece from One News. Bill English gave another underwhelming speech on National’s economic plan, which basically boiled down to ‘tax cuts!’. A young businesswoman in the audience told English she wanted a real plan. His response: ‘tax cuts’. But he could give no proof his tax cuts would improve the economy.
Written By: - Date published: 12:03 am, February 17th, 2010 - 16 comments
Key doesn’t have the money to keep his promise to make everyone better off or at least no worse off from tax reform. He doesn’t have pixies in the garden to make more money. But he can cut the bottom tax rates, and a new poll shows strong support for that move.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, February 16th, 2010 - 62 comments
In their attempts to justify putting up GST on all New Zealanders to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy few, the Right are going so far as to argue that middle and low income New Zealand doesn’t even exist.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, February 15th, 2010 - 54 comments
Key has explicitly promised that no-one will be left worse off by these changes but he doesn’t have the money, can’t have to money, to do that if he persists in handing over buckets of money to the rich.
Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 110 comments
Tracy Watkins awards the first week of Parliamentary politics this year to Phil Goff, and points out that it’s as much due to his and Labour’s much improved performance as it is to Key and National’s shambolic, over-promise, under-deliver governance. (more…)
Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, February 13th, 2010 - 38 comments
Click through for today’s Tom Scott cartoon.
He hits the nail on the head.
Putting up GST hits the poor the hardest.
For Kiwis who are barely scrapping by every cent counts.
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, February 12th, 2010 - 24 comments
The best political commentary these days doesn’t come from the political journalists. As Zetetic shows, they have turned themselves into government minders. But there are others who tell it like it is. Such as Karlo Mila in today’s DomPost. The article was headed up “If you could just suck it up, that would be nice.” […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, February 12th, 2010 - 12 comments
In chronological order: John Key: “[I never promised I wouldn’t raise GST]. I said I would not raise GST to cover deficits, and we are not doing so.” Guyon Espiner: “he would have been better of just saying ‘look, times have changed and GST is now back on the agenda’” Duncan Garner: “The Prime Minister […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, February 11th, 2010 - 60 comments
My my, things are turning quickly for John Key. We now have the first sighting of the red flag term “the beleaguered PM” in the mainstream media. Recall that in 2008 Key promised not to increase GST, and now he is proposing to do exactly that. 3 News (Duncan Garner) summed up: So Mr Key […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, February 11th, 2010 - 9 comments
“Last GST hike had little impact, say tax experts” – Herald The article is about inflation but it is also true of growth. There is no evidence that increasing GST from 10% to 12.5% and cutting income taxes boosted growth. In fact, the country entered a long period of stagnation and recession. And why would […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, February 11th, 2010 - 40 comments
Yesterday, Rahui Katene said the Maori Party could walk away from National if they didn’t adequately compensate low and middle income people for increasing GST. Do you think it will happen? No way. Do you Tariana Turia is going to give up her Crown car and the other baubles of office? Probably end up voting in favour […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, February 11th, 2010 - 3 comments
“An unscientific poll yesterday of 846 readers asking whether they would be happy to pay more GST if it meant they paid less income tax found 46.9 per cent in favour, 43.9 per cent opposed and about 8 per cent undecided.” – Stuff “Unscientific poll” I take to mean one of their online polls, and […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, February 11th, 2010 - 100 comments
I find it frustrating that the debate over tax concerntrates on the top rate rate, which doesn’t apply to 90% of taxpayers. It’s as if the Right, and many in the media, are either blind to the existance of people on normal incomes or severely underestimate their number. John Key, of course, is the worst. […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, February 10th, 2010 - 25 comments
John Key has indicated that the Government will lift the GST rate to 15% and remove depreciation from investment houses. According to the Tax Working Group, that’ll raise $3.6 billion. That revenue will then be spent on compensation and tax cuts. First, he has promised compensation for the GST increase to beneficiaries, people on working […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, February 10th, 2010 - 15 comments
Any questions?
Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 97 comments
Bernard Hickey: He had a chance to follow up all the talk of real reform to create a ‘step change’. He had all the experts under the sun from inside and outside of government telling him he needed to do something. He commissioned reports. He talked a good game. Today he did nothing. He did […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:19 pm, February 9th, 2010 - 28 comments
Good spotting by Jake Quinn: during the 2008 election, John Key ruled out raising GST, as the Herald reported back in October of that year: ‘National leader John Key said told (sic) a press conference this morning that if National is elected and does a ‘half decent job’ at growing the economy, then increasing GST […]
Written By: - 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: - Date published: 12:58 pm, February 3rd, 2010 - 49 comments
This is the first post in an occasional series that will translate Tory speak into plain language (fellow writers and guest posters are welcome to play!). Today’s exhibit is this corker from the Double Dip: “Finance Minister Bill English today confirmed Budget 2010 will be delivered on May 20 and will set out important policies […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, February 1st, 2010 - 16 comments
On the Q+A blog, Tim Watkin rips into the proposed tax changes. Part of the post: …You might think that such a new source of tax income would open the door for tax cuts for the poorest New Zealanders; after all, they struggle the most in tough economic times and spend a higher proportion of […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:49 am, February 1st, 2010 - 38 comments
A good appearance from Phil Goff on the first Q+A of the year. I liked this part especially: Guyon Espiner: You spoke in your speech a lot about tax as well, and again you returned to that equity and fairness argument, and I want to quote from that, you said “too many people on good incomes […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, January 29th, 2010 - 30 comments
In his speech yesterday Phil Goff articulated Labour’s position on tax in no uncertain terms and came out very strongly against wealthy tax dodgers : “Too many people on good incomes avoid and evade paying taxes. It’s not right that some top earners pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than those on the […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, January 28th, 2010 - 44 comments
Colin Espiner’s back with his first blog of the year. It’s so much fun having him back. In his first outing, he comes up with four suggestions for government action in the year ahead. Since the government doesn’t seem to have any other ideas, let’s look at two of them: End interest-free student loans Yeah, […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, January 27th, 2010 - 31 comments
Fran O’Sullivan has a piece pointing out the vested interests of senior Nats regarding tax reform: “More than two-thirds of the National line-up have beneficial interests in trusts (entities that the Inland Revenue believes are responsible for a $300 million hole in tax revenues at the current 33 per cent tax rate).” – National wants to […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, January 25th, 2010 - 34 comments
Marty did some really excellent work last week on the Tax Working Group’s proposed tax reforms last week, which Zetetic summed up as ‘tax cuts for tax cheats’. I think Marty convincingly showed that slashing the top tax rates with all the benefits going to the rich and paying for it by putting the cost on poor […]
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