GST is not a tax – suck it up

Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, February 12th, 2010 - 24 comments
Categories: articles, gst, tax, unemployment - Tags:

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.”

A few choice quotes:

Almost a fifth of our young people can’t even get their feet on the first rung of the career ladder. They’re learning one of the hardest lessons the labour market can teach.

Business Week described this group as the lost generation: “bright, eager – and unwanted”. Paula Bennett eloquently advised young people having trouble finding work to “suck it up”. Noice.

In a context of hard times, aside from telling us to suck it up, our Government’s plan is to increase GST. Say it three times and rub your sparkly red shoes together: GST is not a tax, GST is not a tax, GST is not a tax. Did it work for you?

For a Government that campaigned heavily on tax cuts, a move to increase tax is phenomenal. Actually, they intend to increase one tax (that affects everyone) to reduce another tax (that affects some).

And:

There is so much talk about catchup with Australia but so little talk of match-up. Australia managed to sidestep the recession. Unemployment is at 5 per cent. As Alan Bollard pointed out, Australia is helped along by its minerals. Analysts have pointed to a relatively functional banking sector, an advantage New Zealand shares. One major difference was that Australia’s approach to the recession was generous stimulus. They supported people to keep on participating in the economy.

We’ve gone for penny pinching, service slashing, line-by-line reviews and 1402 job losses in the public sector. We’re losing jobs and homes in unprecedented numbers. Higher GST is another pinch and a punch for ordinary Kiwis.

She writes well, too.

24 comments on “GST is not a tax – suck it up ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Brett Dale 1
    12 February 2010 at 10:24 am

    If Labour was in Government (thats not goingto happen again for a long time) and they rose GST, you guys would be cheeering, what an amazing and great idea that is.

    • Big Mike 1.1
      12 February 2010 at 10:41 am

      you have no bloody idea about much at all do you brett?

      pull your head in.

    • Lanthanide 1.2
      12 February 2010 at 11:39 am

      If Labour did raise GST, I’m sure they would have an excellent reason to do so (rather than giving tax cuts to tax cheats), and moreso would ensure that there was adequate compensation to those at the lower end to do everything possible to relieve the pressure on them.

      When they raised it from 10% to 12.5%, they dropped the bottom tax rate from 19.5% to 15%.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.3
      12 February 2010 at 12:57 pm

      Still delusional I see Brett.

  2. DeeDub 2
    12 February 2010 at 10:29 am

    Because we all think with the same hive-mind, do we Brett?

    Get a life, pal.

  3. Rob 3
    12 February 2010 at 11:52 am

    Boomerwanks swallowing the future. They’ve slung the noose of debt around their grandchildren’s necks and the sanctimonious prats have the temerity to seize the high moral ground, identifying themselves with the sacrifices and hard work of their parents and grandparents. Time to form a Gen XYZ party I think, and turf these rightwing royal morons out after one term.

    • Zaphod Beeblebrox 3.1
      12 February 2010 at 2:16 pm

      Except most of Gen’s Y and Z will be in Australia by then. Shonkey and Douple Dipton are doing their best to give them no reason to stay.

  4. mickysavage 4
    12 February 2010 at 7:25 pm

    Idiot Savant has posted a really good alternative to the idea of raising GST to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

    The concept is
    here.

    After seeing it once I wonder why not?

    • RedLogix 4.1
      12 February 2010 at 7:35 pm

      The idea of FFT’s has been around a long time, but in order to be really effective it is thought that they would need to be implemented by all the major economies more or less at the same time. However the USA has resolutely rejected even discussing such a move.

      It would appear that our real owners objected.

  5. big bruv 5
    12 February 2010 at 10:30 pm

    This place is stills shithole full of insane twits.

  6. Jenny 6
    13 February 2010 at 7:54 am

    On Wednesday Rahui Katene resubmitted her private members bill on the removal of GST from food.

    http://infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?id=47832

    Will the Labour Party support Rahui Katene’s bill?

    Michael Cullen once set out his conditions for removing GST off food.

    In 2008 in a debate over removing GST from food, then Minister of Finance, Michael Cullen argued that it would require the government to raise GST to 15%.

    So, using the same logic:
    Now, that we have a government, that is raising GST to 15%, will the Labour Party come out in support of Maori Party bill to remove GST from (healthy) food?

    Or will Labour side with the Nats and ACT against the Maori Party?

    Dom Post Sept. 27, 2008

    Finance Minister Michael Cullen says it could be more than that ($2.1 billion), depending on where exemptions kicked in.

    “Assuming that the lost revenue would have to be made up by increasing GST on all other goods and services, the Government would have to lift the rate to 15 per cent.”

  7. Ms X 7
    15 February 2010 at 5:46 pm

    horrified as I am at the (rightwing) flip flop on gst, when you look at the gst/vat rates overseas, you see that ours are rather low – BUT , and it is a big but, in so many countries there is no gst/vat on food etc. And it’s not just food; secondhand items (logically, no service tax), takeaways, and baby items are excluded. If we are going to go through this farce of making things better for the lower paid, then this is the sensible way to go. Might I suggest that items of a medical/ personal nature be excluded too?

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