Household rubbish tax

The Herald has a story on how the new household rubbish tax may bring in $30 million a year for the Government.

Now as a general principle I have to say that there can be considerable merit in imposing taxes on “bad” things such as pollution and rubbish rather than “good” things such as earnings.

But the problem is every time the Government comes out with a new tax, we don’t get a corresponding drop in other taxes. Hence all that happens is the Government always gets more and more money.

It would be nice to have some taxation responsibility bill which mandate that every new  or increased tax must be fiscally offset by reducing an existing tax.