Surpluses

I’ll do a more detailed analysis late tonight or tomorrow on the surpluses.  But what happens if we add today’s $8.7 billion surplus to those of the last three years.

Total surpluses = $33 billion, 807 million (source: Crown Financial Statements)

Total households = 1,393,707 (source: 2006 Census)

Surplus/Household = $24,256.89

So that is how much per household the Government has taken in taxation than it has spent on operating expenditure these last four years.

Now not all of that would be available in terms of tax relief. One does have to cover the Cullen Fund contributions (until Kiwisaver is big enough to replace it).  I’ll do an estimate later on how much tax could have been reduced by, if there wasn’t an ideological hatred of reducing the tax burden.