Goff: no GST hikes or tax cuts for rich
In his speech yesterday Phil Goff articulated Labour’s position on tax in no uncertain terms and came out very strongly against wealthy tax dodgers […]
Economy
tax
Colin, I missed you
Colin Espiner’s back with his first blog of the year. It’s so much fun having him back. In his first outing, he comes […]
Nats in line for big $$ from own tax reforms
Fran O’Sullivan has a piece pointing out the vested interests of senior Nats regarding tax reform: “More than two-thirds of the National line-up have […]
Labour needs to be firm on tax
Marty did some really excellent work last week on the Tax Working Group’s proposed tax reforms last week, which Zetetic summed up as ‘tax cuts […]
Tax is the price the elite pay to maintain their privilege
John Roughan asks: “Nearly half of all personal tax revenue is contributed by just 10 per cent of us. Is this socially healthy?” […]
Pascal’s Bookie says…
Pascal’s Bookie said in comments 3 pretty graphs, Median Income Average income of the bottom decile Average income of the Top decile one […]
Who wins and who loses from tax reforms
You’re probably up to your ears in this tax reform issue by now, but just one more. It’s a good ‘un, promise. I’ve made […]
33% nonsense
David Farrar has one of his dodgy maths posts, where he argues that getting rid of the 33% rate is necessary because typical New […]
Tax cuts for tax cheats
The Right’s main justification for the highway robbery of cutting the top tax rate to 30% then funding it by increasing rents and charging […]
A little knowledge
David Farrar on Kiwiblog says When Labour reduced the top tax rate from 66c to 33c in the 1980s, the amount of tax […]
The lucky country: Aussie tax system more progressive than NZ’s
It fascinates me that in all this talk about ‘catching up with Australia’ via tax cuts, nobody bothers to look at the Aussie […]
Nobody else is doing it so why should we?
A commenter asked an interesting question yesterday: of the countries that are wealthier than us, how many have aligned their top income, corporate, […]
Foreign banks buggering NZ
I’m no big city banker. But I was under the impression that profit is the income that is left over once you’ve paid your […]
Tax Working Group is inherently flawed.
Marty wrote on taxation expert Craig Elliffes opinion series in the Herald a few days ago. The third in the series wound up […]
Right’s threadbare excuses for tax gifts for the rich
The Right is trying to build momentum for more tax cuts for the rich. The argument comes on three fronts: ‘if we don’t […]
$400 mln xmas gift for banks
The banks, who tried to rip us off to the tune of $2.6 billion, have agreed to pay us $2.2 billion. I don’t […]
Neolibs’ great experiment in meltdown
With huge infusions of EU cash and deregulation that brought in foreign companies looking to make a quick buck, Ireland’s economy grew pretty […]
Just asking
It has been treated as gospel that if the Australians, for inadequately explained reasons, drop their corporate tax rate from 30% to 25%, […]
Guaranteed minimum income + capital tax, the way forward?
Occasionally something in politics really surprises you. Like when I turned over to Campbell Live last night (I’d seen the Family Guy episode […]
Tax working group disappoints
I’ve had quite high hopes for the Tax Working Group. I thought it would be a genuine, ground-up review of the tax system […]
Tax Working Group report preview
Let’s hope the Tax Working Group’s report out today is more worthwhile than the effort of the 2025 Taskforce. The basic idea that […]
Tax reform for everyone, not just the rich
Why is it that whenever you see discussion of introducing capital gains tax, land tax etc, the assumption is always that the money […]
A good reform, but a minor one
I watched Terminator 3 last night. It’s the worst in the series but that’s still better than watching another Guyon-National lovefest*. Which is […]
Treasury provides cover for Nats’ rightwing agenda
National’s favourite public servant (who got himself a nice pay rise), John Whitehead, has been offering dire warnings of the future. $2 trillion […]
Rich Germans demand higher taxes
From the BBC: A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes. […]
Flat tax: works for Lithuania and Albania, eh?
Predictably, the ideological vanguardists at Treasury are rolling out the flat tax argument again. For some unknown reason Radio NZ hasn’t published the […]
Nats find no government waste
I missed this one a few weeks ago but it’s worth pointing out. National spent $300,000 hiring half a dozen supposed business geniuses […]
Taxpayer shafted again
National seems to be making a bit of a habit of shafting the taxpayer. Before the election we were promised significant tax cuts, […]
To my friend
We haven’t talked lately and that has partly been my fault. Just doesn’t seem that we share as much in common now that […]
Tax reform mustn’t be a gift for the rich
Vernon Small’s pieces on tax in the Independent and Dom this week have been interesting. He provides a good overview of the issues around […]
GST up? It depends
The Government’s Tax Working Group has proposed increasing GST to 15-20% to pay for cuts to income tax. I’m not automatically against GST […]
A question of trusts
Here is Bill English in the cocktail tapes talking about Working for Families: “the reality is if we had been the government, with […]
Double bubble trouble
It’s a rare day that I agree with Bill English but he’s right about the danger of another housing boom. The last bubble […]
Taxing times
In my opinion Pundit is one of the treasures of the NZ news/blog space. The posts are frequently excellent, in a world where […]
Govt backs tax cheats
There is $4 billion in overdue tax owing. Every dollar of that means someone is pocketing cash that should be paying for schools, […]
Taxing debate
Treasury’s man on the tax reform working group, Professor Norman Gemmell, has laid out some changes that Treasury would like to see: GST […]