Recently I wrote to NBR editor Nevil Gibson asking this champion of the 1% to include the tax paid by our super-wealthy when the paper reports on its rich list this year.
I haven’t had a response yet and I’m not holding my breath. The letter is self-explanatory – here it is:
Kia ora Nevil,
As the National Business review prepares it’s 2015 “rich list” I’m requesting you include the amount of tax paid by each of the individuals you list.
The most useful way to do this would be by way of the percentage of tax paid based on total income from all sources, for example wages or salary, dividends and capital gains etc. Included in this calculation should also be the GST they pay. Accurate GST figures for an individual are difficult to obtain as they would be for anyone but as the rich listers will be in the top 1% of income earners then a 4% maximum should be included (the top 10% of income earners pay less than 4% of their income in GST according to the most recent study I’ve seen but you may have more up to date figures)
It’s likely that most of the individuals on the rich list will be reluctant to provide details of taxation but as you are able to ascertain the value of their wealth it should not be past you to be able to calculate their contribution to the public good through taxation.
Last year I did my own calculations to show that the Prime Minister for example paid just 2.8% of his total income in tax while a worker on the minimum wage pays 28% of his/her total income in tax. A few people criticised my calculations but none were able to come up with anything more accurate.
I’m sure you’ll agree we should all pay our fair share of tax and by including this aspect you will be doing the people of New Zealand an important public service. By adding tax to the rich list mix would make it much more relevant to the mums and dads, wage and salary earners and beneficiaries who pay tax on every dollar they earn and every dollar they spend.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Excellent idea. It would put the Rich List in stark relief. One imagines Mr Gibson would be in some trouble with his loot laden buddies if he obliged John’s request!
There is a tendency to let “Captains of Industry”–finance capital in the main actually–off the hook by aspirational kiwis deferential to their “betters”. This sees the likes of Peter Talley knighted while his company is in the middle of another union busting binge in the meat industry.
How about a petition? – I’d sign it!
Oh dear , …now your gonna have a bunch of hapless auditors chasing around obscure banks and finance houses in balmy , idyllic offshore islands.
Poor auditors.
Whatever the outcome of any tax study of the 1%, any published results will clearly demonstrate the 1% do not pay enough. For the poor and struggling it will make depressing reading. They will be angry. They will wonder about the smug grin of the 1% rock star.They will wonder what can possibly be done about such a travesty of economic justice.
Correctemundo Jo. Meanwhile at the OECD HQ:
“there are inequalities in living standards and wages are low. The government should do more to stem the rise in poverty and inequality in New Zealand, the report says. Greater focus is needed on improving the lives of the most disadvantaged, particularly children from low income families”
Geez even Low Income Single people of all ages are struggling to survive on New Zealands bullshit wages.
Thats if they can find a job that is a 40 hour one.
I bet that most of them pay less income tax per year than I do, and I would probably earn less in a year than a lot of them would earn in a week. But then again, I don’t have access to a lot of tax evasion (not avoidance as Gosman would insist) techniques like trust accounts, shell companies and Cayman Islands bank accounts to hide my income. Nor would I want to. I believe in paying my fair share of tax, but the 1% don’t and won’t.
Here’s a novel idea. Why don’t you do the research yourself and publish it here or in any other media that will accept it? Or is that too much effort?
Kinda hard when their accountants advise them to draw a personal small wage ,split that with their ‘spouse ‘ then move the company profits to locations offshore accruing large interest rates through investments whilst offsetting and minimizing it even further by claiming tax rebates on so called ‘ business losses’…
Whaddaya want – a bloody Royal Commission of Inquiry just to establish what thieves so many of them are?
Then you’d moan about the poor taxpayer having to foot the bill for that Inquiry , wouldn’t ,you Gostit.
You really don’t do subtle do you Gossy?
Conservatives don’t get satire either, so don’t feel bad.
Just a minute! that sounds like a job for………….journalists! Oh, I forgot – there aren’t any real journalists on the Nat Herald, just National Party secretaries and copyholders. Actually my dear Gosman, these people are very good at hiding their earnings and it takes incredible effort and resources to find out anything that they don’t want to tell you, and most don’t want to tell you anything (I wonder why?). Perhaps Gosman you could lead by example and give us the details of your earnings?
Um Gosman, John Minto isn’t the one composing the rich list, so he can’t. Are you so attention deprived in your life, that you have to bore the rest of us with your nonsensical, tedious posts designed to achieve a negative reaction? If so, I almost pity you.
Minto is one of the people who was recently banging on endlessly about privacy and spying.
Seems it doesn’t count when it suits him.
Yes ,….but the difference is …that privacy and the unwarranted intrusion of govt spying unfettered and in an unbalanced, ( AND ILLEGAL ) unchecked way as we have been subjected to recently is a WORLD away from trying to compare it to the sort of scam ridden , devious rorts that go on day after day among the top income earners in this country unnoticed , un- audited and unchecked .
And THAT’S the difference , Sonny Jim.
The rich listers don’t seem to mind having their earnings published for the world to see. This has nothing to do with privacy laws, it is in the public interest to know whether these folks pay their fair share.
Andrewo, Firstly, if anyone objected to being on list, I am sure the NBR would not be able to print their name without permission. Secondly, it is my understanding that making the list is a badge of honour to the 1%, therefore that is unlikely. Thirdly, for the benefit of stockholders, corporate earnings are public knowledge anyway. You are comparing chalk with cheese.
Read recently that the IRD’s own figures show that some 50% of NZ’s wealthiest don’t pay their fair share of tax.
Oh no, they pay their fair share all right, it’s just they believe that their fair share is practically nil.
One of them had 197 entities created in order to “avoid’ paying tax. Trusts, offshore bank accounts, etc. All simply because this person decided that paying tax was for grubby serfs, and they should be almost entirely exempt. And this sort of thing is rampant.
It’s a start:
http://www.thelocal.se/discuss/index.php?showtopic=56791
It could go further without impacting on ‘privacy’.
Have we any clever union economists left who could work out what value each of these lovelies is getting from the taxes paid by the rest of us?
Once upon a time, in the antediluvian public service, if you knew a person’s occupational class and grade (not hard) you knew what they were earning. Privacy didn’t come into it.
Sauce for the sheep; sauce for the wolves and bloodsuckers.
Nice letter and very reasonable too. One should expect a reply but no doubt you’ll be disappointed John. The only question is, what exactly is a reasonable amount of tax to pay – we may differ on this, but there’s no question that 99% of us would say that the rich are not paying it.If the one percent were allowed to bring back slavery , they surely would, and they’d have some damn fine economic arguments to back them up.
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