Last week I wrote a post – What tax evasion robs us of. It quoted an estimate that the US had $21–32tn of untaxed assets, and that if taxed properly the income would fund a UBI in America.
On The Nation on Saturday Gareth Morgan came up with an estimate for NZ:
Morgan: Tax burden falling on NZ’s working class
Economist Gareth Morgan believes New Zealand could be missing out on up to 25 percent of total income tax because the rich aren’t paying their fair share.
Morgan also told The Nation it is possible to get global corporations like Apple and Facebook to pay more tax on what they earn here.
The Government collects about $30 billion per year in income tax, but Mr Morgan says that take could be much bigger. The figures come from a soon-to-be-published report from the Morgan Foundation.
Dr Morgan says the report on New Zealand’s current tax system shows that the burden is falling on middle- and working-class families. “There’s no free lunch here. If the rich aren’t paying their fair share, someone else has to pay more than they otherwise need to,” he says. …
What could a government do with an extra $7.5bn a year? Crack down on white collar crime, add a capital gains tax and a financial transactions / Tobin tax, and what couldn’t a government do?
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