The Tax Working Group

Grant Robertson announced:

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Revenue Minister Stuart Nash today announced the Terms of Reference for the Tax Working Group and that the Group will be chaired by Sir Michael Cullen.

The Tax Working Group that National established in 2009 had no politicians on it – just experts. Sir Michael is very experienced in this area but he is basically Grant’s mentor and the Tax Working Group in no way can be seen as independent.

“Final recommendations to Ministers are expected by February 2019. As promised before the election, any significant changes legislated for from the Group’s final report will not come into force until the 2021 tax year.

This indicates they will seek to pass them into law in 2020, but just not come into effect until 2021.

The key test for me is whether this will be an exercise to increase the level of taxation in NZ (which I oppose) or will be revenue neutral (any new taxes are compensated by reductions in existing taxes).

I’m all for a Capital Gains Tax so long as company and income tax is reduced to compensate.