The benefits of a good tax regime

Stuff reports:

The British-born, Auckland-based CEO of a $4.4 billion Australasian company says New Zealand’s tax regime is so far ahead of Australia’s that all his new recruits want to move across the ditch. 

Fletcher Building chief executive Mark Adamson also tipped a bucket on any talk of an Australian infrastructure boom, saying the state of Australian politics has dented his confidence that projects will actually be delivered.

Adamson said that in contrast to New Zealand, Australia charged too much tax, through a system that was overly complex. 

“New Zealand is a very simple tax regime. I take five minutes to fill in my tax return and I’m a fairly complex tax person. The taxes are low and they simply encourage entrepreneurs to swing their bat and try new things,” he said.  

“And [that] is not to say that we don’t have good public services.” 

New Zealand’s tax system was a global leader, he said.

“New Zealand is a great model and the best system I’ve seen and I’ve worked all over the world.

“When we recruit, people spend five minutes looking at the tax regime and they all want to move to Auckland. No one wants to live in Sydney.”

We do have a fairly simple tax system, and IRD generally does a good job through online services of making it easy. Rates are still a bit too high, but we are better off than in Australia.