Hard News: Steven Joyce: Prick or Treat
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
the ridiculous proposition that National and Labour both subscribe to – that we cannot and should not raise taxes.
Bart, may I introduce you to Labour's policies to introduce a CGT and a new top income tax bracket? Or do you mean "we cannot and should not increase the overall tax take"? Because the latter seems to be a pretty universal sentiment outside of the NZ Communist Party, with even the Greens looking to trade off some increased taxes here with some decreased taxes over there. Hell, even Mana is not clearly advocating a big increase in the overall tax take because it wants to abolish GST at the same time as introducing other taxes.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
“we cannot and should not increase the overall tax take”
Yeah that. Despite the fact NZ has a relatively low total tax take in comparison worldwide and very low compared to those countries at the top of all the leaderboards we like to compete on, we continue to believe that we can have all the benefits the higher tax countries have without paying that tax.
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Stephen R, in reply to
Or do you mean "we cannot and should not increase the overall tax take"? Because the latter seems to be a pretty universal sentiment outside of the NZ Communist Party, with even the Greens looking to trade off some increased taxes here with some decreased taxes over there.
Speaking as someone without children, and not a member of the Communist party, I'd support an increase in my tax rate if the money got spent on hospitals, education (especially early childhood), and assistance to people who need the help.
I'd rather live in Finland than the US, thanks.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
I was meaning politically universal rather than communally universal. Mana appears to be nearly, almost campaigning with a clear policy of a net tax increase, but none of the other parties that have a show of getting into Parliament are doing the same (unless I've missed something in the Greens' policy announcements). Some are actively campaigning on a net decrease, including National.
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Labour is proposing an increase in net tax. CGT plus increase in the top tax band, and there's no major corresponding cuts. It's how Labour pays for all the spending promises.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Labour is proposing an increase in net tax. CGT plus increase in the top tax band, and there’s no major corresponding cuts. It’s how Labour pays for all the spending promises.
They’re offering the possibility of tax cuts in a second term, plus R&D tax credits immediately. That doesn’t look like a sustained net tax increase to me.
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Stephen R, in reply to
I was meaning politically universal rather than communally universal.
Ah, fair enough, sorry for misunderstanding.
One of the things I really liked about Michael Cullen as Finance minister was that he ignored for so many years the bleating for tax cuts, and instead paid off debt while the going was good. I think that's one reason NZ didn't suffer more in the GFC.
I was disappointed that he (or Helen) finally caved in the last year, but I guess it was a last-ditch attempt to fend off the inevitable defeat.
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Keir Leslie, in reply to
The R&D tax credits go nowhere near the value of the CGT plus increase in top rate, which is intentional. And yes, I think the long run idea is to open room to possibly make the overall tax take more progressive by cutting tax on low/middle income earners, or to possibly pay down debt faster, or possibly improve services --- those choices won't be made until late 2016 at the earliest, so it's hard to forecast what they'll be.
But the actual policy on the table in this election has Labour increasing net government revenue over the foreseeable future, with any (and only possible) tax cuts only occurring in the second term never-never.
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On science funding, the current SMBC seems topical SMBC comic
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Farmer Green, in reply to
At 31% of GDP, NZ's total tax take is not very different from the OECD unweighted average of 35%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
At 31% of GDP, NZ’s total tax take is not very different from the OECD unweighted average of 35%.
A 12.9% increase in government revenue, from 31% to 35% would be huge!
And yet again, do we aspire to the OECD average or to the top of the OECD. All the important tables we compare ourselves to we wish to be at the top of not at the average or even worse to be below average.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
And yet again, do we aspire to the OECD average or to the top of the OECD.
Not sure that aspiring to be at the top of the OECD for tax take is something that would go over well with the focus groups, though.
We should aspire to be in at least the top third of the OECD on metrics of social progress and well-being, work out how to fund that progress, and then be where we end up being for tax take against the OECD average. Starting with the question of "How much should we tax?" seems to be rather putting the equine beast before the towed, wheeled carriage.
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Angela Hart, in reply to
We should aspire to be in at least the top third of the OECD on metrics of social progress and well-being, work out how to fund that progress, and then be where we end up being for tax take against the OECD average. Starting with the question of "How much should we tax?" seems to be rather putting the equine beast before the towed, wheeled carriage.
And there you have it. Should New Zealand's government be minimal, virtually divested of responsibility for infrastructure, encouraging business but unconcerned about social progress or should this country's government be focussed on the quality of life of its people?
The subject of this post personifies the first view. -
linger, in reply to
You meant putting the cart before the horse ... rather than the reverse?
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Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
I don't think he did. You want the horse to be before the cart: you want the question of "how much should we tax" to come before "where do we sit in relation to the OECD average tax rate"?
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Farmer Green, in reply to
Matthew's point was that well-being and and social progress (?) are the objectives, and the tax take ought to be no more than is necessary to achieve those objectives.
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linger, in reply to
Except that he started off with “rather”, which implies that he regards the following order as a mistake.
ETA: "should be no more than necessary to achieve that" goes a bit too far -- I suspect it's "should be at least sufficient to achieve that"
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Farmer Green, in reply to
low taxation results in shitty lives for the population
A direct causal link? A long bow indeed.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
“should be at least sufficient to achieve that”
Agreed.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Starting with the question of “How much should we tax?” seems to be rather putting the equine beast before the towed, wheeled carriage.
What we have done in NZ for the last three decades is argue that we can and should reduce our tax take. We have pretended that providing the governmental services we all desire can continue and increase while reducing tax take.
We continue to argue strongly that X should not be done because it might require more taxation, while ignoring the fact that most people want X.
So no I do not think that attacking the concept that we should reduce taxation is inappropriate.
To play with your analogy, we can argue all day long about how many people our carriage should carry whether suspension is necessary. But until we address the issue of how many horses are needed such argument is pointless.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
low taxation results in shitty lives for the population
A direct causal link? A long bow indeed.
Go to Cambodia. No really, actually visit the country. You will see the result of near 100% tax avoidance. Schools built from foreign aid, but no teachers because there is no taxation to pay them. Police more interested in selling souvenir police uniforms than protecting women, because nobody pays them enough to live.
The relationship between taxation and quality of life is far far too strong to dismiss as merely correlation not causation. But by all means continue to smoke.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
Not sure that aspiring to be at the top of the OECD for tax take is something that would go over well with the focus groups, though.
I was addressing the rather silly suggestion that because we are merely 4% below the OECD average taxation that we should feel comfortable with that.
I agree we should be talking about what we want from our tax dollars and then making sure we have a high enough taxation to achieve that. But the difficulty is that there will instantly be endless people arguing ooo no we pay too much tax already and we should be talking about anything that might increase that awful terrifying number.
When in fact we pay significantly less tax than the countries we aspire to, so no I'm not going to apologise for attacking the fundamental and false assumption that taxation is bad.
Oh and just a note, while the US is listed as 24% that does not include state and city taxation at all and when you do include those you find that we pay less tax than most Americans!
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
You meant putting the cart before the horse … rather than the reverse?
Yes, I did. I got too fancy for the early hour and lack of caffeine :(
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
endless people arguing ooo no we pay too much tax already
Or, apparently, believing that Bill English's spread in Dipton comes with that rarely-found species of tree: the pinus money-printarius. They're the ones who demand to know how Labour et al are going to pay for their various policies, as though National somehow don't have to levy taxes to pay for their policies.
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Sacha, in reply to
lack of caffeine
a harsh mistress
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