Dumping on Dunne’s taxes

Written By: - Date published: 9:48 am, March 20th, 2013 - 13 comments
Categories: capital gains, national, tax - Tags: , ,

The Nats are in trouble with their budget deficits and looking to raise money via increased taxes. But they are tinkering at the edges of the problem, with their petrol tax, and the proposed car park and gadget (“iPad”) taxes.

The latter proposals were so inherently daft (low revenue, hard to administer) that they quickly got laughed out of the court of public opinion (told ya so). The Nats were quick to try and isolate the damage, setting up Peter Dunne in the announcements axing the car park tax and the gadget tax. As David Cunliffe comments at Red Alert:

The really shocking back-story to this tax debacle has been the total contempt which Prime Minister John Key has shown for Peter Dunne and the United Future Party.

Twice in two days Mr Key has publicly put the kibosh Mr Dunne’s new taxes by speaking directly to journalists. Each time Mr Dunne has carried on, seemingly oblivious to how he’d just been thrown under the bus by National’s leader.

Ouch.

Hey Nats – stop faffing about at the edges of the problem. Admit that your income tax cut bribes to the rich were unaffordable, and reverse them. And / or institute taxes that address real problems and will raise significant income (capital gains tax, Tobin tax). Stop pissing about with car parks.

13 comments on “Dumping on Dunne’s taxes ”

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  1. Enough is Enough 1
    20 March 2013 at 10:25 am

    Capital Gains Tax will not raise significant income. It is seriously required for very important reasons but it will not be a source of significant income

    • Lanthanide 1.1
      20 March 2013 at 12:47 pm

      “but it will not be a source of significant income in the short time”

      FTFY.

      • Lanthanide 1.1.1
        20 March 2013 at 12:47 pm

        short term*

        We *really* need this edit functionality back 🙁

        [lprent: Debugging the new one. The old one fell over for no apparent reason, but probably a jQuery / ColorBox incompatibility. Works fine on my test box with the same set of plugins. Fails when I copy over the entire code. Been around the entire site turning off plugins. Basically it has always been fragile and there are no really good alternatives unless I go to disqus or the like, which could cause privacy issues. So it is build something less fragile… ]

  2. karol 2
    20 March 2013 at 10:33 am

    Agreed, Anthony. It’s time for the income tax bribes on the wealthiest NZers to be withdrawn. It’s time for those that have the most to step up and do what’s right for their fellow Kiwis and the country.

    • fender 2.1
      20 March 2013 at 3:55 pm

      Yes exactly, it’s clear that 10% have gained enough from their tax cuts to acquire 49% of MRP, so now is the time to reverse the cuts that are unaffordable, as continued Govt. borrowing clearly illustrates.

  3. Dv 3
    20 March 2013 at 10:51 am

    Probably pay back by Key for Dunnes comments about deals with Skycity

    • toad 3.1
      20 March 2013 at 12:46 pm

      Lets hope that prompts Dunne to sink the SkyCity dirty deal in retribution.

      • paul andersen 3.1.1
        20 March 2013 at 6:28 pm

        dunne will be looking around for another bunch of weirdos to latch on to, he has been to more parties than paris hilton. maybe family fist . act cuddled up to the S.S. trust.

  4. peterlepaysan 4
    20 March 2013 at 8:05 pm

    It is all political grandstanding.

    The government of tax cuts to the wealthy now says we have no cash and have to think about ridiculous taxes.

    They will not do it.

    But we scared you.

    But we scared you.

    Aren’t we a nice smile and wave government?

    This very old trick of straw bogeys not happening is always run by losing governments against weak (non existent) opposition.

    This Key government has been, and will continue to be a disaster for NZ.

    Unfortunately there is no credible opposition.

    I weep for my grand children and theirs (if they can afford to have them).

  5. Dem Young Sconies 5
    21 March 2013 at 8:43 am

    There is still the very real problem as identified by the IRD, of corporates evading tax by giving these perks to employees. They lower their wage bill by giving away perks, but claim them as expenses. It’s nothing more than theft from the employee and tax payer by employers.

    There is an easy fix though – the reintroduction of the payroll tax. A $2000 or so per year tax on employers, per employee should cover the tax evasion (on car parking, cell phones, laptops etc) currently rife in NZ. It would be simple and easy to levy, as businesses could be taxed via the IRD’s PAYE records.

    • Colonial Viper 5.1
      21 March 2013 at 8:52 am

      So you gonna just target corporates with this, or every corner store with $29,000 pa staff as well?

      A $2K payroll tax may be all well and good for an exec on $200K pa, but for a shelf stacker on a fraction of that, it’s not.

      • TT 5.1.1
        21 March 2013 at 9:38 am

        Good point. Something could be scaled depending on the incomes of each staff, so that businesses that employ more low-paid workers aren’t over taxed. As a concept though, I still think it is sound. The payroll tax worked well back in the days before neoliberalism.

        • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.1
          21 March 2013 at 9:49 am

          Yep. I just want to make sure that a distinction is made between struggling small ma and pa businesses, and money sucking ticket clipping corporates who feed off those small businesses as well as every one else.