Labour’s arrogance on tax

Richard Prebble writes:

What has happened to the Jacinda tidal wave? Jacinda who started the wave is the person who stopped it.

Labour’s policy under Andrew Little was to have a tax review. Labour would take any recommendations to the voters at the next election. Kelvin Davies set out the policy on TV only to be publicly slapped down by Jacinda.

In a “captain’s call” Jacinda changed the tax policy to say that a Labour victory was a mandate for Labour to introduce any new tax and at any rate that a nameless committee of “tax experts” recommended, just the family home is off limits.

Any tax? What about land tax? Yes. Tax on the family bach and boat? Yes. Water? Petrol? Nothing is off the table. Will the capital gains tax be 33 per cent? Maybe. The petrol tax 10 cents a litre? Probably. Water tax. Guess a figure. “Trust us” says Jacinda.

No party has ever asked for so much power.

 

It is too much power for any government to have.

What was Jacinda thinking?

It is and was arrogance of Labour. They thought that the public would give them a blank cheque and allow them to introduce whatever taxes they wanted.

A Capital Gains Tax is not a minor tweaking of the tax system or a relatively insignificant tax (like the tourist tax). It is as fundamental and major a change to the the tax system as you can get.

New Zealanders deserve to know in advance whether voting for a party will lead to such a fundamental change in the tax system.

They also deserve to know how much extra tax they would pay under a Labour-led Government. Would a Capital Gains Tax be at 15% (bringing in $3.7 billion a year more) or at 33% (bringing in $8.1 billion a year more).

Will your parents family home have the Capital Gains Tax applied to it when they die?

Will your start up small business be whacked with CGT when it has an initial growth spurt.

New Zealanders deserve and need to know this stuff when they vote. Otherwise they can’t make informed choices.