Posts by Paul Williams
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It's expensive, unhealthy, unnecessary to survival and requires the mass exploitation and slaughter of sentient beings.
Not unreasonable but lots of kids get most of the calcium from dairy - my youngest is allergic so she's getting hers from soy products but they're not cheap either - 500 mls of most non-GMO soy milk is around the AUD $3.00 mark. So while I don't object to your point, it's not entirely simple... I suspect those kids who love cheese-toasty (and who doesn't) will baulk at calcium supplements!
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She called Obama "Mr Kumbaya". She actually did.
Angry people make good entertainment but I seriously doubt this person's sincerity (or maybe judgment, I'm not sure which). I did a angry young man scene in the Tony Sutorious Campaign 1996 movie... I'm sure it's not quite so bad (it's certainly brief).
That anyone might think this would help Clinton is frankly astounding. If the reason she's still in the race is to position herself for another run, then the "spiteful spoiler" narrative isn't winner; she's not responsible for the comments of her supporters, but she might be nevertheless stuck with them.
What's the current inside oil on Democratic VP options?
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National is exhibiting a kind of in-time responsiveness to public whimsey that is sadly lacking in the Labour Party's responses to public whimsey.
Nice take.
Labour won't listen is the message from the Nats, but what worries me is that Key listens and speaks quickly enough but clearly doesn't understand. His throwaway line about discounting medical student debt is a classic. He doesn't pretent to understand the loan scheme and National as its architects capitulated last election when they embraced the interest changes so now he can promise to forgive debt and claim somehow to be attuned to the community.
I would love to have the relationship between National and Curia cleared up. Farrar has said he polls for them as well as others - Family First included - but there's also suggestion that Curia actually does operate out of National HQ. Does it?
Nevermind the fact that forgiving debt may do little to solve the 'shortage', nevermind that there's no costings or even a coherent tertiary policy. Nevermind, even, that National have an incredibly poor track record in tertiary education - Grant Robertson makes this point here:
I was there when Lockwood Smith signed his pledge about abolishing tertiary fees. The tactics are the same- tell the public what they want to hear, hide away what you want to do.
So was I.
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I think we're getting stuck in the weeds here, my point was just to say that treating state-based payroll tax the same as federal income taxes may not be the optimal representation. The point made in the original piece stands.
I bet there's an industry somewhere there converting executive perks into stuff that isn't 'payroll'
You're almost certainly correct. I had a friend who was a high-end recruiter who knew chapter and verse how to maximise individual benefits while minimising employer tax profile... some of it was pretty disturbing stuff actually.
One of the benefits we don't often talk about in NZ is the relative simplicity of the NZ system - simple enough that many don't even have to file a return - no such opportunity exists here; everyone must and does file a return and tax agents are popular folk (as Don alluded to earlier, there's thousands and thousands of exemptions and benefits for which a claim must be made).
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So is PAYE. Sorry, I don't buy your argument. It's a tax directly related to income.
Don't want to split hairs Don, but PAYE is paid by employers on-behalf of employees as a percentage of their gross salary. Payroll tax is not. It's an amount calculated on the total cost of all salary, wage and related benefits incurred by the organisation inclusive of the PAYE component they've paid for their employees. It's not quite the same as PAYE but that's not to say it's not relevant to the equation, just that it's a slightly different category to PAYE.
So this idiot kiwi's not fallen for it...
The main concern for folks in Aussie right now is that large swathes of youngsters are leaving school with next to no education to go and work in the mines and earn a truckload of money.
This is a little overstated. I was over in WA a couple of months back and there is a real issue with school leavers however, the demand is strongest for trade-qualified people, even if they're not all the way through their apprenticeship. There's lots of non-completions which are increasingly attributed to the wage-pull of the mines.
I agree however that there's a risk in the medium-term and other areas of the Australian economy are not developing as quickly as it should (dutch disease anyone). The Western Australians are already thinking about this, less so the Queenslanders.
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and ain't it a hassle. i've a bunch of money in an aussie super fund i can't touch until i retire...
Che, I kinda feel the same but the logic's pretty reasonable. Kiwi's have pretty seamless labour market access in Australia and can up-sticks and leave easily too so the transaction volume and costs could be significant. I suspect there's more kiwis working in the eastern states than there is Western Australians.
That said, I've heard mention of new arrangements allowing kiwis greater portability now that kiwisavers gone large. It'd seriously piss me off if my super here couldn't be shifted to a comparable scheme in NZ and I wonder what the transaction costs are if large number of payments are being made back to NZ now?
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Sofie, Australian super contributions made by kiwis are payable to the payer once they've reached the age at which the benefit is payable. They're not forfieted but they're not, currently, portable.
Unlike tax residents from other countries, eg. UK, kiwis are treated as if they are Australians and their super contributions held until they'd be otherwise payable. The portability arrangements for other foriegn nationals reflect the fact that they tend not to bounce to-and-fro the lucky country whereas we kiwis do. I understand there is some discussion regarding a portability arrangement now that Labour has set up kiwi-saver.
Re the payroll tax, I agree it should be considered when calculating total tax take, but it's paid by employers, not employees, and while it almost certainly is a factor in what employers pay as a salary, it's not in fact otherwise payable to employees were it not paid as a tax.
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I'm sorry, could you point me to where Key's said that he doesn't intend to release any policy ever?
Craig, I respect the fact that you are one of the few people here who're prepared to argue for National, they're lucky to have your support frankly. However, the fact that National haven't released more detail on tax policy, combined with the silly comments Key has so far made, mean they're wide open to the criticism that they're not prepared for government. Perhaps it is a clever tactic, but publishing so little detail on so few policies is, IMO, taking the piss.
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I don't think Phil Goff is the only person out there who thinks all you get from candour is a pair of clown shoes in the balls.
Craig, I can't see that approach working on tax. While he's no longer expected to have views on most policy, the one issue he's been banging on about for evah is tax so now saying you'll have to wait looks foolish.
The NZ election is different from the Australian but it's interesting that when the Coalition announced their tax package at the start of the '07 election, it took Labor only two days to release there's.
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Fair comment Craig, but why is Key's script full of evasion and vague twaddle?