Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Nearly all of your examples are outright illegal, being tax evasion or fraud. Even barter is taxable, and work-for-work is arguably taxable.
That's my point Matthew. Rich people tend to avoid taxes legally (some undoubtably don't). The rest of us are probably more likely to use illegal measures to not pay tax.
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Well, I never quite said that. All your examples do happen, of course, but mostly people just work for an employer and pay their tax.
I work for an employer full time and pay tax (and student loan and child support).
I've also done all of the things listed in my first paragraph except selling stuff as a job, for moderately small amounts of money. I run a system which has about 20 people doing a similar thing, though only a couple would earn over $1000/year doing it.
I had a friend once who turned down a job and made a counter-offer of the same work for the same amount of money as a contract, rather than quibble over the starting pay rate. He was then able to write off rent, phone, internet, car against the income and save himselves a couple of thousand in tax. Not rich, just making himself a little bit richer.
It does seem strange to have a go at 'the rich' for legally avoiding tax, and then not see 'the rest of us' illegally avoiding tax.
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Really? Most people have only a wage or salary for income, so how?
Self-employed taking cash, people working under the table, selling things as a job and not declaring it, work done under a barter system or trading work for work.
Also beneficiaries doing work not declaring their income are paying tax, but not telling MSD about their income etc. ACC recipients doing work that they're apparently not able to do while collecting ACC payments.
The idea that the rich are the only people who try and work the system to their best advantage is a little silly.
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__3410: No, I'm suggesting that there's nothing particularly useful in sneering generalisations about an ill-defined collective noun. It's knowledge, bro.__
Now you're calling me prejudiced for being against tax evasion.
The original quote was:
Those with higher income are often the first to admit they pay their accountants to avoid paying taxes.
Whether or not it's sneering, or ill-defined, it's certainly a generalisation.
I suspect almost everyone tries to avoid paying taxes, for most of us it's just not worth paying an accountant to help us.
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Probably the best thing musically to happen over the past year here in Napier has been the re-emergence of the Cabana hotel as a live music venue.
We have a similar story over the past 18 months in Dunedin with Chicks Hotel, which used to be a sleazy, bear soaked dive, and is now the main place visiting bands book when they come into town. Part of Port Chalmers revival. Hector isn't making money there yet, but he's adding pizzas to the offerings soon and hopefully it starts to pay for itself soon.
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Are you kidding? They're flattening it now, have done once already, and, if Bill English is to be believed, have yet another round planned.
We'll have to wait to see what is in the actual budget. But according to stuff:
As well as the cut from 38 per cent to 33 per cent, the 12.5 per cent rate, on income up to $14,000, could fall to 10.5 per cent while the 21 per cent rate, on income between $14,000 and $48,000, could fall to 19 per cent.
So they're cutting several rates. It's probably no more or less flat than the last National govt's tax rates.
And 'flatter than what Labour had' doesn't make it flat tax. We still have a reasonably progressive tax system, even if they take off the top rate. The only party that's going to make an argument for flat tax is ACT, and it ain't gonna fly here.
Key has said some stupid things in the past couple of days, what he hasn't done is argue for a flat income tax rate. Why not target the stupid things he does say?
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Okay, technically you're right. It's not a lie; it's a trick, but it's a dishonest representation of the situation, all the same.
You could equally say that a Cheetah running at 20kph is "fast" and a tortoise doing 15kph is "slow", but that also ignores the context.
That's a silly analogy. You could say that a cheetah is faster (pays more tax) than a tortoise (pays less tax) because that would actually relate to less/more.
It's not a trick, or dishonest. "Pays more tax" means you pay more money to the government in taxation than someone else. You count up one pile and then count up another pile and compare them.
This spin is an insidious plan to normalise the idea of a flat tax (because that would be "fair", wouldn't it? Everyone paying "the same"?).
Apart from the fact that no one has seriously proposed flat income tax in NZ for 20 something years.
It would be good to remember that while GST is a flat tax, one of the reasons for having it is that it spreads the tax base and catches "rich pricks" like farmers and the self-employed who are able to write off every expense they've ever incurred in order to avoid paying income tax. If anyone can think of a good way to progressive-ise it I'm all in favour, but I'm not sure progressive sales tax is practical.
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<quote.Most people would not see persistent exposure to toxic environmental substances as compatible with good health, no.</quote>
You didn't say toxic chemicals, just said new chemicals. But anyway.
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When we say "pay more tax" in this context it is understood that we mean "pay more tax as a percentage of income", not "pay more tax in dollar terms".
Understood by who? That's not what I understand by "pay more tax" at all.
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Resist the lies. GST is regressive, full stop - as Key and his media minders know full well.
Sorry, this argument annoys the hell out of me.
GST is a flat tax. It can be regressive in individual cases because people who earn more may spend a lesser proportion of their income. It is not necessarily so. People on a high income might save for several years and then blow way more than their income on building property, therefore paying way more than one year's GST in a year. In that instance it's not progressive. It's a percentage of expenditure, not a percentage of income that it is flat against.
But you can make the same claim about income tax. People in upper incomes are more likely to write off expenses against tax, have tax havens, trusts, etc (ie, Sam Morgan recently saying he paid no tax). Doesn't make income tax regressive.
The statement Key made is also generally true. People on an income of $100,000, even if they spend 70% of their income, pay more GST than people on an income of $40,000 who spend 100% of their income. Possibly a lesser percentage of their income, but that doesn't make the statement a lie.