tax

Categories under tax

It’s your fault I keep saying contradictory things

Written By: - 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 […]

Counting our collective coin

Written By: - 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 […]

Tax cuts = no rise in the minimum wage?

Written By: - 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 […]

Dolla Dolla Bill, Y’all

Written By: - Date published: 5:17 pm, March 11th, 2008 - 14 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 […]

Protecting New Zealand’s assets

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, March 4th, 2008 - 90 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 […]

What’s the future of Working for Families?

Written By: - 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 […]

John Key’s plan to cut your pay

Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, February 20th, 2008 - 144 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 […]

Is inequality closing down our concern for others?

Written By: - 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 […]

Positions on tax cuts: a summary

Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, February 13th, 2008 - 33 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 […]

Swan to build surplus as economic stabiliser

Written By: - 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 […]

Key conjures up cuts

Written By: - 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 […]

Rich call for tax cuts for rich

Written By: - 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 […]

Cullen puts tax cuts in context

Written By: - 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’ […]

Tax cuts and the wage gap

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 5th, 2008 - 64 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% […]

Possible $1.5b in tax cuts in 2008

Written By: - 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 […]

Entitleme.com – tax comparisons

Written By: - 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 […]

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