Pencilsword: Greed vs Need

10 comments on “Pencilsword: Greed vs Need ”

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1. Ed 1

   5 August 2017 at 7:05 am

   We can’t afford the rich.
2. red-blooded 2

   5 August 2017 at 8:04 am

   Great work, Pencilsword!
3. patricia bremner 3

   5 August 2017 at 8:50 am

   At least Labour have a policy to deal with multi national tax evasion, and a promised tax review.

   It will need MORE inland revenue staff, not the STAFF CUTS National have implemented.

   This is where “the money will come from” (show me the money/ John) so hence the squeals of the greedy.

   My National supporting relative, after talking about a possible Left government, began to wonder what they would do about tax and the tax creep.’

   Then he talked about how most people under $70 000 income, get more tax back than they pay.

   I asked did he claim depreciation on his properties, and he said he hadn’t for years, and he could only claim a proportion of their costs now he was on the pension!!

   The irony of his attitude escaped him!!

   Beneficiaries would manage so much better if they could claim their expenses.

   The comfortable and the rich feel entitled and are sharp about any increase in benefits or increased taxes.
4. greg 4

   5 August 2017 at 8:56 am

   did national lay off ird staff to make sure tax envision isn’t investigated
   • tc 4.1

     5 August 2017 at 11:33 am

     One could say that of several institutions under nact, a nip here, cut there, a ceiling pretty much everywhere. Commerce and electoral commissions amongst them.

     Except the enablers, installed dept heads etc, and of course the big4, law and other consultants remuneration is doing very nicely thanks.

     Then their stream lined systems work like novopay and the ird’s new one give ’cause’ for further retrenchment.

     Tax evasion is sorted by law and a culture shift in govt/ IRD. It favours the evader under the current methodology so it’s sorted if the will exists, which of course it doesn’t with nact.
   • Draco T Bastard 4.2

     5 August 2017 at 11:48 am

     That does seem to be part of their reasoning. After all, promising to look into tax evasion and then laying off the people to do that is a great example of the old saw: Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

     It’s clear from their actions that National have no intention of chasing tax cheats – probably because they’d all end up in jail.
     • ianmac 4.2.1

       5 August 2017 at 11:54 am

       “…because they’d all end up in jail.”
       Joyce would probably head the list given his “success” in business. But hell, the prisons would be so overloaded.
5. ianmac 5

   5 August 2017 at 10:14 am

   Great work Toby Morris and Lisa Marriott.
   I have emailed the cartoon (are cartoons meant to be funny or terribly sad?) to family and others.
6. Michael Shanahan 6

   5 August 2017 at 12:31 pm

   In a draft report in 2014 the SFO estimated total fraud in NZ was between 6 and 9 billion dollars a year. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/257185/economic-crime-costs-up-to-$9-point-4bn They had larger figures for benefit fraud and tax evasion than the study quoted above, $80 million and $2 billion, so the same order of magnitude, and the story to be told from them is the same.

   According to them benefit fraud is not only dwarfed by tax evasion, but also by fraud in ACC and Health ($567 million) , other government departments ($322 million), and fraud within the private sector ($3 – $5 billion), all of which costs us one way or another.

   Vote SFO is 9.34 million https://www.sfo.govt.nz/vote-sfo .

   MSD spends $50 million on ” services for investigation of overpayments, fraudulent payments and collection of overpayments” http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2017/estimates/v10/est17-v10-socdev.pdf

   If fraud becomes an ongoing topic of conversation in this election it might be worthwhile widening the conversation and having a policy of increasing funding for the SFO, if that’s not in the works already.
   • Draco T Bastard 6.1

     5 August 2017 at 3:34 pm

     If fraud becomes an ongoing topic of conversation in this election it might be worthwhile widening the conversation and having a policy of increasing funding for the SFO, if that’s not in the works already.

     QFT

     Nine billion dollars is about 5% of our economy. About three times what we spend on R&D. Close to what we spend on health or education.

     And most of it simply going into the pockets of the rich and greedy who don’t need it.

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