tax

The lunatic left all promote a ‘Robin Hood’ tax, aka a Tobin Tax or Financial Transactions Tax. Matt McCarten, himself a stranger to paying tax, even promoted it in the Herald on Sunday.

The problem with such a tax is that it doesn’t work, and it has been tried before with disastrous consequences..

James Tobin, a Nobel-prize-winning economist and disciple of Keynes, first proposed the idea of a global transactions tax—on foreign exchange—in 1972. This newspaper has regularly criticised it on two counts: it would be unworkable unless all governments signed up to it (and perhaps even if they did); and a levy would harm the liquidity of financial markets, making asset prices more volatile. Now there is a third, equally valid objection: that a Tobin tax is a poor solution to the problems in banking—too much leverage, too little care taken in assessing risks and banks that are deemed too big to fail.  Read more »

Labour follows closely behind the UK in its policy making. In the UK they have the Fabian Society and a branch has been formed here in New Zealand for hard core Labour lefties.

Selwyn Pellett, Bernard Hickey and David Parker et al are all either members or contributors of the Fabians in New Zealand. One wonders if they will take the lead of the UK and implement a policy like that proposed over there…raising taxes off of the back of those filthy rich pensioners?

Pensioners’ taxes should increase, their benefits be cut, and a tax on property wealth should be introduced in order to share the pain of austerity with today’s hard-up workers, a think-tank said today.

The income gap between pensioners and workers has shrunk massively in the last few decades, so taxes should be raised on those in retirement, the Fabian Society said.

Middle-income working households enjoyed an income 93 per cent above that of middle-income retired households when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, but that figure is now 37 per cent.

High-levels of home ownership among older people means the older generation are in effect far better off, as middle-income workers’ wages now stagnate and they cannot afford to buy a home.  Read more »

The more I look at the video of David Shearer’s Q+A interview the more I think it was a train wreck.

Far from providing clarity on any issues or any policy in fact it clouded anything and raises the possibility that he certainly doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Take his answer on capital gains tax:

We’re not putting our money in the profitable sector; it’s going into the property market because we don’t have a capital gains tax that will help us direct money into those areas. And if you’re wanting to raise money, then at least put money into businesses- invest in businesses through the incentives of capital gains, and that brings, obviously, money into the government as well.  Read more »

What is IRD going to do, send round a gang of thugs to make you pay tax? … oh wait

The difference between our politicians and overseas politicians is stark. Here in New Zealand we had the leader of the opposition keep an offshore bank account, reportedly with millions of dollars  in it secret instead of declaring it on the Register of Pecuniary Interests.

In France a secret offshore bank account, with much less loot in it than David Shearer’s, has cost a government minister his job and now threatens to bring down the government.

What a difference having a media who holds politicians to account makes.

The French government is in crisis after François Hollande’s former budget minister and tax tsar was charged with tax fraud following a shock confession that he had held a secret foreign bank account for 20 years and had repeatedly lied about it.

Jérôme Cahuzac’s sudden admission that he hid €600,000 (£510,000) offshore for more than two decades is the biggest scandal to hit Hollande’s presidency.  Read more »

APN/The Herald have an article covering that Apple NZ paid 0.4% tax on TURNOVER of $541 million – a story pushed by Labour and David Cunliffe.

Apple’s New Zealand division made sales of $571 million last year but paid only 0.4 per cent of that in tax.

Labour’s Revenue spokesman David Cunliffe said that’s akin to paying nothing at all, and letting a corporation get off “scott free” is something New Zealand taxpayers shouldn’t have to stomach.

Apple’s New Zealand sales topped the half billion dollar mark in 2012 after rising to $414 million in 2011, according to its financial results for the 12 months ended September 29. Apple is the world’s biggest tech company and makes iPads and iPhones.

Its local unit recorded a tax paid profit of $5.5 million in the year, down 40 per cent from its 2011 earnings. Income tax fell to $2.5 million, amounting to 31 per cent of pretax earnings, from $5.1 million a year earlier.

Nowhere in the story does it state want percentage of profit was paid in tax. The story seems to be pushing emotion while being light on facts and data.

But since APN think tax should be paid on turnover I thought I’d check what they paid. After all if you are going to point the finger at other corporates you had better be a corporate citizen than they are.  Read more »

David Shearer is a big fan of Finland…perhaps he will soon start suggesting this solution, taxing unpaid work:

FINLAND’S tax authority is trying to find new ways to increase revenue and is considering going so far as to tax unpaid labour, an official has told public broadcaster YLE.

The tax office was looking at service exchanges in particular, such as time banking, where reciprocal services are exchanged using units of time as currency, or more informal arrangements such as that between two neighbours.  Read more »

Governor Bobby Jindal at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Could it be possible…no income taxes at all? Bobby Jindal thinks so:

Governor Jindal has unveiled a specific proposal.

The plan will eliminate two major tax types: personal income tax and corporate income and franchise tax. Eliminating income taxes in a revenue-neutral manner and improving sales tax administration will dramatically simplify Louisiana’s tax system and reduce administrative problems for families and small businesses. The effective start date of the program is January 1, 2014. …The plan will ensure revenue neutrality by…[b]roadening the state sales tax base and raising the state rate to 5.88%.

This is a superb plan.

Of all the possible ways for a state to generate revenue, the income tax is the most destructive.

That’s why researchers consistently have found that states without this punitive levy grow faster and create more jobs.

It’s also worth noting that jurisdictions such as Monaco, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands manage to be very prosperous in the absence of an income tax, though the incredible wealth of these places is partly a function of bad policy elsewhere, so the comparison isn’t perfect.

Anyhow, Gov. Jindal expands on this research with some very powerful data.  Read more »

National is having a shocker. First there is Hekia Parata creating bad news cycle after bad news cycle.

Then there was the Peter Dunne’s stupid car park tax. Now there is his even stupider cellphone tax.  Read more »

Why is Peter Dunne the new Steve Jobs?

Because he now wants to bring us the iTax.

A tax on work phones, work tablets and laptops that might get used for personal use.

A planned tax on the personal use of work laptop and cellphones is potentially even more controversial than the recently-scrapped car park tax, the Government concedes.

The move by Inland Revenue has sparked a reaction from the group that successfully overturned the car park tax, signalling it could side with the big telecommunications and internet providers over the issue.  Read more »