Posts by nic.wise
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I rather like the idea. It's a focused "etsy for writers"
That said, I know nothing about the writing and publishing game.... so Lucy and co may have a point.
I do, however, have the skills (if not the time at the moment) to build it :)
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NZ is regarded in the EU* as one of the few sane GST/VAT systems in the world, because it's flat with very, very few exemptions. NZ is held up as a gold standard of how not to f**k it up.
So please don't f**k that up for political points. It's a mess here in the UK (who have 0, 5% and 17.5% depends on what it is), and I'm told Australia isn't much better.
Aus was much worse (might have changed). A basic load of bread is 0% (it's a staple), but one from your local bakery is 15% (or whatever full GST is there). But it's all bread....
* friend of mine is very, very high up in the EU's VAT section (and in HMRC (UK's IRD) before that). Basically, he's one of the people who gets together with the other (french, german, etc) VAT heads and works out what the EU does in terms of VAT.
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@jo
Not all UK cards have the passphrase (eg my personal one does, but the company one doesn't). It's visa or whoever your provider is who is doing the asking - times (and anyone else overhere) just gets a reply back saying "all good, but you need to redirect them here first".
Also, it's visa and mastercard only. Amex dont do it (and hence yo dont get the screen at all). And I think, over here, it's mostly debit cards.
Normally, there is a section on it saying "if you dont have a passphrase, click here", and it just ignores it. It is possible that the times have screwed up tho, and ticked "UK only cards" on their application form....
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I think you'll find that papa prevailed on his friends in the screen industry for this clip, and that it cost more than $5000.
I'd challenge you to find a decent music video which costs less :)
Actually, I'm not, 'cos I'm sure there are examples, and both of us have better things to do - but you get the idea - NZOA is only providing _some_ of the funding, and from what's been said, none of the opening. Someone provided the rest - be it King Sr or the record label.
I'm not sure what the purpose of the NZOA funding is anymore. To do a good video is going to cost a lot lot more than 5K, so really it's just a bit of funding for the record companies (or indys). Maybe they need to fund things where the total budget is no more than 2x the NZOA funding - ie people who wouldn't actually make the video if it wasn't for NZOA....
Aaaaaah, so it's a showreel. Gottit. All that fuss over a little cunt or three whose towering ambition is to clean up bigtime pimping cognac to coloured kids. Or wannabe coloured kids, more likely.
Not at all what I implied - I just said it was polished work, rather than cheaply thrown together crap (even if the content is)
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OK, so I've watched the video a couple of times - first time 'cos I had no idea what it was, not living in NZ anymore, the second after reading a lot of the comments.
Second time, also, with the sound off, 'cos the "music" is, IMO, a lousy Eminem rip off, and if I want to listen to Eminem, I'll put his music on.
It's (IMO) actually a load _worse_ with the sound off. I imagine, if you edited Slim Shandy out (whats his name? Seriously, I had to look it up on LudditeJourno) it would be even more so.
My problem with it is context - or lack of it. There is nothing in the first 1:45 which wouldn't come up in an episode of Sopranos, Millenium, CSI or Dexter, except that those shows then have another 40 mins of context around them, either catching the person - and hence showing the viewer that no, thats not a good thing to do if you dont want to spend the rest of your life in jail - or explaining that the victim was a "bad person" (in the case of dexter). Tho I can't see how that would be the case here.
For me, it's on about a level with SAW, or Cube. It's not ever going to be shown before the watershed, and it's not something I want to watch again.
If you put the same level of sex on screen, the title sequence would be Californication. But again, that has context - how fucked up hank's life is, and the consequences around the actions. The writers have time to work with it. Someone commented on 24 being similar - I've not watched it, but from what I know of it, they'd be about right.
Due to it's short format, this video has none of that context, which I think is more the issue that people have. It leaves the rest of it up to your imagination, which is, frankly, a more scary thing than the video itself.
For me, the take aways are:
* the production values of hiphop in NZ has got higher (ie, more money) since I left NZ, but the content is still at the gutter level it was. I was expecting bitches-and-bling, I got torture porn (both musically and visually). I dont much like either.
* Watch out for that director and whoever edited and produced it. Thats some seriously polished work on a small budget. Get those people out of music videos and into features or TV.
* I really hope no one decides it might be a good idea to repeat this, in real life, on some tourists (or locals for that matter). it's happened too often already. But sadly, I suspect it might.
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@logan (and others): so what happens if they "Sell" to the bank (ie, get forclosed on). And the property sits empty, like soooooo many in the US are, because the bank is not willing to sell at 25% of book value.
Just a thought. It's not all "sell to someone else". And also, what happens to those who dont WANT to buy? or can't?
For example, we rented even when we had investment properties. Made sense for our lifestyle.
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@Rich and @Matthew have good points.
Would this option work? Scrap the LAQC option. Losses are kept in the company (at the moment they can be applied to shareholders tax bill (ie, refund), same as a profit is applied to the tax bill).
So, after 5 years, my company with 5 peoperties has a paper loss carried over of, say, 100K (20K/year). If I sell a property at profit, I have to clear that loss off before I pay tax on it, so if I sell one for an 80K loss, I still have 20K of loss to get rid of before I have to pay tax on a "profit". But if I sell one for 150K profit, I have to pay CGT on the 50K (100-150).....
Depreciation makes sense and should be applied across the board. LAQC not so much.
Of course, get rid of LACQ and I'm guessing someone will find a loop hole around partnerships, which dont pay tax and just split the profits between partners (And losses, I assume?).
Or, as it's so trivial to setup a company in NZ, you have one owning trust and one property per company.... which makes it kinda look like a "person owning their own home", as a company is a legal "person".
I see why they havn't changed it up until now, and also why I'm not a tax lawyer!! Stupidly complex.
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is anyone going to mention the
fairly obvious "solution"?stamp duty or CGT.
You make a profit, you pay some tax. easy. except
it needs to be on investments and personal sales.and there is no chance of that happening. can tax the battlers because their house price went up. that's not "fair"
also on stamp duty. here in the uk it's a % up to 250k (3% I think) then it goes up. oddly enough there are a lot of houses around the 225-240 k mark.
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@Glenn - sorry, I checked with the finance dept, and yes, you are right - we did get the claw back of depreciation, I just never saw it....
@Grace: yup,maintenance of my laptop is tax deductible, too, but after a while, it's not suitable for the job - hence depreciation.
Anyway, sorry for the confusion
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I'm not 100% sure you are right on the claw back. In theory, thats how it works, however it's (usually) fairly easy to not have it clawed back, if you buy to hold, not buy to flip.
If IRD can prove (or rather, if we can't disprove) we started with the intention to do it as a flip - buy low, make some minor changes, sell higher, pocket the profit, move to the next one - then the profit is taxable, as we are property trading, not investing. But otherwise: not so much.
If we hadn't decided to move to the UK, we'd most likely still own the properties we had, which makes it easy to indicate buy-and-hold.
Now, take out that 3k in depreciation, or 1K in "tax refund income".
I now dont realise any profit until I sell the property (because the rent covers the mortgage and some expenses, but seldom actually results in a _profit_ before tax), and if I buy to hold (ie, for cashflow/an income), then I'm going to either get out of the market (cue rent rises 'cos there is less rentable properties) or I'm going to put the rent up (same result) so I DO get a profit for the time I put in.
Put it this way: would you get up at 3am to fix (or organise to fix) a hot water heater for $5 a week? or for -$5/week? Thought not.
So maybe they are a bit FOS. But not totally.
also: if my company buys a laptop, I can depreciate it over 3 years to zero (I'm a software developer). Same if I buy a car or a desk.
But you are saying if my other company buys a house (it's stock/plant/equipment), which has an oven in it, a water heater, light fittings etc, I can't claim any depreciation over the life of those items? it's owned by the business, it makes some money for the business (try renting without those), and if it breaks or gets too old, I _have_to_ replace it. But I can't depreciate it. WTF? Double standard much?