CGT dumped – Jacinda’s moment of political cowardice

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From Mother of Dragons to just another circler of wagons, the NZ ‘dream’ of untaxed property speculation will remain alive.

A cowardly decision by Jacinda to dump the CGT…

Government kills off capital gains tax, won’t happen on Jacinda Ardern’s watch
The Government has categorically rejected a capital gains tax.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement this afternoon, saying there was no mandate – and no consensus – for a CGT.

In doing so she has rejected a key recommendation from the Tax Working Group – which cost an estimated $2 million to run.

“The Tax Working Group gave the Government, and the country, an opportunity to look at the fairness of our tax system and debate options for change,” she said.

…Boomers are laughing all the way to the bank while Gen Xers. Gen Y and Millennials rot under a rigged neoliberal free market that rewards intergenerational theft.

This boomer prick is laughing…

‘I’ll sell from my grave’: Multimillionaire Auckland landlord Peter Lewis baulks at capital gains tax
An Auckland landlord with 12 properties is unconcerned about a CGT for himself but thinks New Zealand’s 1 million-plus tenants could be in for a rough time.

“I’ll sell from the grave,” vowed Peter Lewis, 73,

…Jacinda is great when you need hugs and smiles and warm snuggles, she’s crap when confronting neoliberalism.

If she couldn’t push this through with 48% in the polls and after international praise for her leadership during the Christchurch atrocity, then she never will. They could have come in with a 15% CGT, half of what Cullen was proposing and pushed this through.

Shush now sweet egalitarianism, hushy hushy as Jacinda pushes the pillow down and silences off the last chance to rebalance the neoliberal economic structure.

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This is a slap in the face to every worker who pays as they earn and a joke for the speculators.

The politics of kindness will only take you so far, at some point you have to throw a punch. She will claim it’s because NZ First wouldn’t budge, but this could have been negotiated – what if Labour had offered the one thing NZ First wants to get the CGT? A free run in Northland at the 2020 election. That would have convinced Winston to have budged.

Apparently the Wellbeing Budget actually referred to the welfare of property speculators – they are sweet as.

What an enormous waste of time that $2million review was.

When Business groups, farmers and landlords are happy about tax policy, democracy dies a little.

112 COMMENTS

  1. Why dont we have an election now! “Let’s Do this!” Lets see if those poll numbers are real!!

  2. I was going to make some snide joke..but in actual fact this makes me feel very, very depressed…not just for the lack of fairness in avoiding a CGT, but in the broader message…a refusal to radically change the ‘housing market’, the rental markets and all the distress these markets bring.

    Unfortunately its a few years away before the full impact of falling housing ownership and, more importantly, renting stress, hits us as the Gen xers and the millenials hit retirement age without secure affordable housing.
    Shame on this Government for not embracing and calmly and progressively dealing with that inevitable issue.

    Shame.

  3. I am amazed that Jacinda actually made this call and this has pretty much guaranteed her the next election. Jacinda seems to be a lot more in tune with NZ than the woke, no wonder she is so popular.

    I take my hands off to her because the so called CGT was an unworkable dog like Kiwibuild that (if the idea is more equality) is NOT designed to do what it was supposed to do. AKA if you want to have a tax outside of taxable income which is what a capital gains tax is supposed to measure then the neoliberals on the tax working group failed to deliver and instead created a new type of way to tax taxable income rather than the gains that people who don’t pay taxable income (including the cash economy and the tax avoiders and the overseas tax residents and corporations) can ignore!

    Seriously when you start making people worse off with Kiwisaver as well as increase rental shortages beyond the unbearable levels of affordable rental shortages we already have then you have a dog in the proposed tax working group idea of CGT!

    Have a think about it, aka this article,https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12221632 the rent is $250 p/w – are rural folks or anybody who has to leave their house for work or health reasons in our insecure work market from small towns – going to rent out their house, when they get pitiful rents, have big insurance expenses, tenants from hell who create thousands of dollars of damage and also fail to pay the rent as well as the mums and dads trying to contend with upgrading to Healthy homes and pay a capital gains tax too! No takers will be the answer and then where will the tenants in those poorer areas like Levin and Hawkes Bay live?

    The National government have already destroyed Auckland and Wellington markets for renting with massive shortages of rental properties from their policies.

    • Aunty has probably had a wee whisper in her ear with all the “steady as she goes” and “incrementalism” and “pragmatism’ buzz.
      Given 18 months has already elapsed, it’s probably not so stroopid (going forwid).
      There is actually other low hanging fruit – stuff and things that could capture both ‘sides’ of the political divide. Public service reform would be one of those things – both local and central.
      Probably should have been high on the agenda from the start.
      Let’s hope the coalition grasp that idea before the gNats do

      • … ‘Aunty has probably had a wee whisper in her ear with all the “steady as she goes” and “incrementalism” and “pragmatism’ buzz’…

        L0L0L0L !!!

        I love it !

        🙂

        • I think most of the comments so far are missing the point. The central character is Peters, not Adhern. The public dont want a CGT because they dont have a clue what its all about. They cant see that it would have helped tenants as against landlords.
          Peters has always opposed a CGT as far as I can see. He desperately wants the votes of those who oppose the CGT to survive the next election so he had an incentive to stand firm.
          He can also see that it sends a clear message to National that he can cut a deal with them at the net election if the price is right.
          There is a bigger issue here than just the CGT. What Peters has done is destroy the Coalition’s image of unity. The big loser is the Greens, who put a lot into the passing of the GST and could drop again at the next poll.
          Peters wont mind that.

          • Or, he could have made a deal with National , which , I doubt he would really want to be forced into.

            If the Greens got rid of certain derailing influences and replaced them with capable people who are not going off on tangents , then perhaps there would be less of a decline in the Green party’s fortunes.

            Personally?

            I believe this country needs the Greens. But not in their present socially divisive M.O, – I party voted for them last election because they were not fairing so well… if they were to tweak and remove just a few of their dominant personality’s who are drifting away from what the Greens are all about,… I can see a real turnabout in their general popularity.

            It is not a big ask, but it would have a huge effect on cohesiveness, not just for the Greens but for the public. And for the coalition.

            I want them to succeed, but not by trying to use alienating , divisive tactics just because a few enjoy popularity among what really amounts to grown up versions of first year political science Uni students in a debating lounge.

            Coalitions mean a lot of compromises. And thats where the adults are needed.

            But under MMP , there never will be again a party that can rule by itself.

            So guess what that means?

            It means sharpening up the tools to enable the cutting edge over their natural opposition, the Tories. We want to see evidence of that happening.

            Not some petty digression into idealistic adolescent identity politicking and name calling.

            So if the big loser in your opinion are the Greens, who helped to enable that situation ? And is blaming Peters just the easy way out and the scapegoat for you?

            Seems a pretty prideful and lazy analysis to me.

            ——————————

            Proverbs 27:17 New International Version (NIV)

            As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

        • I suspect @ WK that the coalition might be starting to realise that our PS (our ‘officials’ in the senior ranks – with whomewe have the utmost faith in …. /sarc) are not necessarily our ‘bestest fwends’ sometimes. Some of them can lie straight-faced whilst having an inability to lay straight in bed.
          There are signs that it’s beginning to dawn on them though with little media outbursts from politicians about things like their playing games with OIAs, etc.
          I think my problem has always been that I assumed Labour/NZF and Green politicians had a better grasp on judging the character of their “officials” than they actually have, and it often takes some sort of incident that jumps up and bites them in the bum before they do. I guess that’s the perils of being ‘oh so nice’
          And in some cases, I’d assumed they had the capability of seeing the bleeding bloody obvious.

  4. The key to unlocking the wealth divide must be simple, effective and across the board, the suggestions come up with around the CGT looked like a messy unlucky dip. A simpler step would be for example to increase the GST to say 25% for purchases and services on everything over (say) 25k.

  5. NZ first vetoed the CGT.
    If the Labour Party had really wanted a capital gains tax, Jacinda Ardern would have called a snap election today, to see if voters would re-elect Labour to govern with only the Greens’ support.
    Oh well, move on. Let’s talk about a land value tax instead.

    • Come to think of it, now is James “Do we deserve to be re-elected if we don’t” Shaw’s grand opportunity to pull the plug on the tripartite coalition, force an election, and see what voters really want.

  6. People made it clear in large numbers they did not want this and furthermore could see no justification from a govt sitting on a massive surplus.

    Just for once I can praise Labour and co but don’t be surprised if there are still more taxes on the way in one form or another. The question is why? And moreover why are big corporations not being asked to pay their fair share?

    • “And moreover why are big corporations not being asked to pay their fair share?………..”

      You are onto it, so is the PM a very very very clever politician. Why piss off the ordinary Kiwi, Wait till you see what they have in store for the multinational corporations that owe their due. That will make any proposed CGT seem like chickfeed.

    • The ‘people’ didn’t know any better because the only people getting their message out were the ‘against’ people. All we heard / saw from the ‘pro’ people was a belated protest at Parliament.

      There was no real campaign to explain how this would benefit the majority of Kiwi’s – there was an occasional article, but nothing on a regular basis to keep the ‘pro’ view in front of people.

  7. “Let’s do this! Unless some people with obviously vested interests get a bit salty about it, in which case… let’s do this some time far in the distant future. Probably. Maybe. So, yeah, business as usual kids! Have fun living with your parents for the rest of forever, or renting a dilapidated hovel from a malevolent coven of grasping vultures while you steadily bleed hope, dreams and the little cash you’re able to cobble together! You’ve got kindness though, right? Kindess. Yeah. Awesome.”

    Christ, Jacinda. I’m the last person to bag you for spurious reasons, but if someone doesn’t do something, this relentless carousel of misery is going to go on forever.

    • ”If they don’t want it, – they’ll vote for the other guy , right ? Ha ha ha”.

      As the voice of Sir Robert was claimed to have been distinctly heard by many on the moonless breeze from far , far away….

      ” ROGer douglassssssssssss ss ss ss….!!!”

      And although not completely discernible , was purportedly also heard, but many just attributed it to the midnight chorus of several local Moreporks answering a barking dog and a late night bread delivery van doing ts rounds …

  8. I’m neither surprised nor overly bothered by this. For any CGT to have a serious impact in terms of redirecting investment away from property to the productive sector, and to raise anything like the amount of money needed to deal with inequality, it would have to have included the family home, and that was never going to happen. It should of course, but that’s the political reality. So even if we had gotten a CGT it would have been so weak as to be effectively useless, and one that focused solely on landlords and rentals may well have had a negative impact on low income people.

    So where to from here? Because clearly the country is in desperate need to raise more cash to deal with the many problems of education, welfare and health care funding that we have. Well in my completely irrelevant opinion Labour should go into the next election promising to loosen the pure strings a little, by borrowing a little more and paying debt back at a slower rate, as Standatd and Poors said we had room to do, and by re-instituting the previous Labour governments wealth tax. While risky, and obviously giving the opposition some ammunition to use, I think Labour could make the case and win the argument, and both policies would be less politically toxic than a CGT.

    • Your comment is completely relevant, why? because everything you’ve said, I completely agree with, from “I’m neither surprised nor overly bothered by this” to “loosen the purse strings a little”.

      We need to borrow to invest in health and infrastructure in particular. Clearly this was not done under National to the detriment of ordinary New Zealanders. National did borrow but I’ve yet to see the evidence of where that borrowing was spent.

    • re “and by re-instituting the previous Labour governments wealth tax. ”

      ….this is where taxes need to be directed ie to the wealthiest corporates and those using tax loop holes….also transaction taxes

      ….not the hard working middle class and small businesses who are already struggling

  9. Duh! MP’s on the Pecuniary Interest list, own collectively about 320 rental and/or second+ properties.

    • Likewise. An FTT is far more pragmatic and fair provided it’s applied to all transactions, large and small.

      • Because the BANKS REFUSE TO HAVE A BAR of collecting it.
        Always have done right from when Jim Anderton first suggested it back in 1988 or when ever GST was first introduced.

  10. Epic fail. Shaw is right, we dont deserve a second term if we hesitate at the slightest chance of opposition.

    • Or the voters might decide the Greens don’t deserve a second term because Greens are moving so far outside of public opinion and practicality and off traditional ‘Green environmental Party and issues like freedom of speech’ that giving Labour ‘election’ advice, is laughable on their current trajectory below 5%.

      For those who may have believed the establishment that thought that Kiwibuild and Unitary plan was an amazing idea that would get rid of poverty and homelessness, think again. It was a dog and so poorly thought out for ideological reasons that I for one am grateful that the Labour Party didn’t do an unworkable dog with the proposed version of CGT to another 65% of the home owning/small business/Kiwisaver population who would mostly have been worse off and the target demographic which was the poor who rent, would have been the worse off of all as they would have no where left to live apart from $1200 p/w emergency hotel rooms and camping grounds.

      • Yes, Kiwibuild is by far the biggest black spot on the government. Terrible idea, and it was a terrible idea long before it was implemented and proven to be a terrible idea. The money would have been better spent on state housing.

        • … ‘ The money would have been better spent on state housing’…

          But that’s not cricket and neither is it neo liberalism. Micky Savage left the room ages ago when dear Mr Treason stepped in during 1984 and showed us a better way by ripping off our neighbors.

          • Lange inherited a near bankrupt country courtesy of Muldoon. You may not like what was done, but it (or something similar) needed to be done.
            It wasn’t treason and shame on you for saying so. It was a response to the situation he found himself in.

            • It certainly was a conspired effort to wreck our economy to spread the dogma that our social democracy and Keynes based economy had emptied the coffers.

              It was a lie, and thus treasonous.

              ——————————

              A key point of the free-market cabal’s programme was to devalue the New Zealand dollar, an extremely sensitive issue.

              Several weeks before the July, 1984 election, Douglas, Labour’s shadow finance minister, ” ACCIDENTALLY ” released a statement which signaled his intent to devalue.

              Since it was a near certainty that Labour, aided by the New Zealand Party’s drawing votes from the National party, would win, speculators began to dump the New Zealand dollar, planning, post-devaluation, to cash in each dollar of foreign currency for more New Zealand dollars than previously.

              With Labour’s victory, the simmering foreign exchange crisis exploded.

              The Reserve Bank’s foreign Exchange holdings quickly ran dry, and Labour demanded, even before the end of the several-week transition period, that Muldoon devalue. After a brief struggle, Muldoon capitulated, and devalued by 20%.

              Speculators made tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars overnight.

              ——————————-

              New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
              http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html

              So thus it was treasonous and shame on you for trying to deny it. And the only response Lange had left was the one planned beforehand and contrived by his Finance Minister , Roger Douglas.

    • CG Tax has never been on the agenda before now, because it is Political suicide for which ever side bought it in.

      No one likes tax, and this was seen as an extra tax by those opposing the introduction.
      Never mind that is was meant to be tax neutral over all.

      In the end, it is individual members MP’s survival that mattered.

      • At the average Kiwi’s heart lies the gold digger mentality, they do it in dairy, they did it in sheep, they do it now with forestry, they will jump at every opportunity to make quick and easy money, PROPERTY has been the biggest gold digger objective for years, so you will commit political suicide if you go and make the gold digging harder or more taxed.

        Shortsightedness, opportunism and ignorance are prime qualities of many Kiwis.

  11. Our government needs to do something about the unfair tax system as it is not fair we pay high taxes on very low incomes and we pay GST on our low disposal incomes so they need to look to either change the tax thresholds or reduce taxes or increase our pay. People don’t have much investment options in NZ so they opt for housing which is safer in the meantime the greedy rich are getting richer and the poor poorer something seriously needs to change. And lastly who is benefiting the most from knocking down our state homes, the very people who whinge there bums off are buying up in the old bronxs areas where many of us were expected to live, bloody hypocrites.

    • Methinks its wages that need to come up.

      Taxes too.

      We’ve tried the low tax , small govt Rogernomic’s thing. Only benefits the big multicorporates who don’t pay diddly jack squat in proportionate tax…

      Ask your /our / my self… why is it that Scandinavia, which has high taxes , enjoys high wages and salary’s, a modern welfare state and robust infrastructure, …is not afflicted with all these issues when we, – who accepted Mr Treason and his neo liberal ideology in 1984 are?, – and have been ever since Mr Treason handed on the baton to MS Treason in the early 1990’s?

      • I’m still relatively happy and supportive of the coalition , but there has been the TTPA , Kiwibuild and now the CGT…to be fair.

        I still hold confidence that the coalition is the best we have and we should still run with it – the alternative would a living nightmare. However, it yet remains to be seen of we are treated to a shake down of all these jumped up neo lib bureaucrats that have infested our welfare agency’s for a decade under Key.

        Just get rid of Ghahraman and Davidson and the Greens will roar ahead. Stick either Swarbrick , – or my favorite , – Gareth Hughes up there as co leaders.

        There needs to be a purge, and a ruthless one at that.

        Matter of fact , – how about Keynesian-ism by increment, that’d put the shits up em ! Taxation by increment and wage increases by a bigger increment. Introduce an interest free govt mint .A cap on rent increases fixed to the inflation rate and cost of living index , ie base workers paye , along with a portion of that tax going into infrastructure and increasing state housing stock. Introduce a 35% corporate tax of businesses over 200 employees and Voila ! instant money go round for the development of small businesses, – why – we could even regulate the Reserve Bank ( I wonder how long before the Aussies sold our banks back to us and pulled out of their price gouging interest rates ?)… Hells teeth , – I can see it now ! , – tariffs to protect our own industry’s and hence workers jobs leading to full employment,… less reliance of one off free trade deals and having all our eggs in one basket and instead setting in place an aggressive marketing environment of creative diversification and entrepreneurship!,… we could even have tax payer paid-for primary industry’s and from the proceeds of limited sale to overseas markets , create artificial scarcity and ramp up the prices meanwhile developing value added secondary industry’s and corner the market for luxury items!

        And after that we could sit back and have a hot cuppa tea and oven warm savory scones with lashings of NZ made butter on them.

        Howzat ?!!?

        • In fact , look at this man , dammit !

          And all those scumbags including the ponytail puller who didn’t have the guts to even make a showing or even defend his own honour because he KNEW Gareth Hughes had his name , he had his locker number… he had him held hard against the wall and Key knew it.

          WHY do straight up honest bastards like Hughes always get sidelined by the screeching , raucous hypocritical stampeding mindless herds in this country ?

          WHY ?!!?

          Gareth Hughes on the Prime Minister’s poor leadership, 11 Feb 2016 …
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO3kgvayZhQ

        • Why not remove negative gearing on houses – I can’t drop the tax amount I pay because my home is getting older and I’m not making a profit off it -why should someone with 2 or more. Also it’s time to put up some targeted taxes – name ‘m and shame ‘m I say.

          • Why not get rid of interest deductibility. It’s not really a business expense, which just means the landlord is spending his income on interest instead of on groceries and stuff.

  12. So Peters has been spooked by NZFs low polling and has staked his party’s electoral success on smacking diwn a cgt?

    And Ardern and Labour caved

    Gutless

    The Left is fucking gutless

    • The lefts talk big talk on inequality and just a CGT was a massive virtue signal.
      Who would have thought.

      • Well, Keepcalm, let’s just have a good look at ourselves first, shall we?

        Have a look at the number of “virtue signalling” blogposts here on TDB relating to the “free speech” issue. Count the number of comments posted.

        Then count the number of blogposts on capital gains tax. Count the comments posted after.

        Although, you needn’t bother. Our attention was consumed with “free speech”, the Green Party, Golriz Ghahraman, etc.

        CGT didn’t feature a hell of a lot.

        If Capital Gains Tax rated so low for our attention – why should it be any different for Labour? Why do you expect it to be critical for Labour – it wasn’t for us.

        • It’s entirely appropriate that free speech got more attention than CGT. It’s more important.
          D J S

        • I’m happy to take my share of guilt right after I’m in government and I spend 2 million taxpayer dollars on a tax working group then ignore their advice, thereby locking in system inequality for at least the next decade after having promised to lift children out of poverty.

          • what about us and our wages keeping up with Australia wasn’t the don brash paid money to do some research on this matter and was any of his recommendation taken up nah! and have our wages kept up with Australia, nah! so what are people going on about wasting money for when the last government were masters at wasting and giving our money away to the rich and greedy. We have a lot of very selfish people in our country even worse we have a lot of ignorant people that don’t know the true history of our country nor do they care to know.

      • well the left better get their shit together cause otherwise many of us Maori will be looking for another party to vote for and it wont be the gnats or NZ first. The May budget will need to be bloody good cause some of us are getting fucken squeezed by taxes and in the meantime those with wealth keep building wealth they have the means to do so and can avoid paying taxes while creaming profits by selling of real estate. When many people cant even find somewhere to live now. And can the government fucken stop gentrifying state home areas this land should remain for the purpose it was intended its really pissing me of.

  13. Interesting. Sounds like NZ First was having none of it.

    Salary and Wage earners are already over taxed and their NZ dollars are likely to decline in value if rates are cut.

    Not sure how the Labour government plans to fund our country without aggravating their supposed ‘core constituency’.

    – Will they borrow more money (issue bonds) and reduce the purchasing power for everyone [increase poverty]?

    – Austerity: reduce funding to core public services?

    – Double immigration [speaks for itself] ?

    – Back track on mineral extraction?

    – Start issuing a none interest bearing government currency?

    – Do nothing and be surprise when shanty-towns start appearing?

    NZ Inc needs to be funded somehow .. wage and salary earners are tapped out.

    • As AOC said “we’ll just pay for it!”

      Socialists are learning that money doesn’t grow on trees and envy politics only reduces the pie, making everyone worse off

  14. Ardern is right. Why push a policy that could cost you every other item on your agenda?

    She’s being smart. A CGT would have been great, but what’s the point if you lose the next election and its repealed – along with every other thing they did?

  15. This is why we should be able to vote on policies, not politicians.

    All the polls apart from the last disingenuously worded one, shows that the majority of the public, not politicians, want speculators crooks and tax dodger to pay CGT.

    What was the point of having Labour in Parliament, again?

    • For me at least and I’m still unsure as to how many sit in the slither of the left that I occupy but for me the point of having Labour was to do with taking climate change mainstream.

  16. Well, I told you so.
    I posted here several times that Labour would become unelectable if they campaigned on a CGT and whilst most here were too foolish accept this apparently Jacinda was not.
    Indent understand this gnashing of teeth. You can either have Labour and no CGT or National and a CGT that would get revoked immediately.

    Like stupid turkeys hoping for an early thanksgiving.

  17. Well, I told you so.
    I posted here several times that Labour would become unelectable if they campaigned on a CGT and whilst most here were too foolish accept this apparently Jacinda was not.
    Indent understand this gnashing of teeth. You can either have Labour and no CGT or National and a CGT that would get revoked immediately.

    Like stupid turkeys hoping for an early thanksgiving.

  18. I am just so disappointed in this lady right now – what a waste. I thought she had some guts to do such a slight thing, but no. Heartbreaking.

    • It must have been obvious from the start that although Ardern wanted a CGT she had no idea how to implement it or the complexities of such a tax. Or else why bring in Cullen?

      Her economic illiteracy is showing again

  19. Every effort made by the child’s elders to prepare him for a fate from which they cannot protect him causes him secretly, in terror, to begin to await, without knowing that he is doing so, his mysterious and inexorable punishment. He must be “good” not only in order to please his parents and not only to avoid being punished by them; behind their authority stands another, nameless and impersonal, infinitely harder to please, and bottomlessly cruel.

    – James Baldwin

  20. Isn’t what you (Bomber) would normally describe as “Woke” politics or something similarly insulting? When and if did you learn to count? Wake up and get with the MMP programme. There is life beyond the current government ; it’s up to all of you and us what shape that takes.

  21. Going forward Councils may need to dramatically increase rates and a national Land Tax of some description may come to fruition.

    I’m not too concerned about the “torpedoing” of the CGT. A working group on The Future of Taxation in a digital/global world would have been more constructive.

    PAYE is really an outdated tax, especially if cryptocurrencies continue gaining traction. Consumption Tax, Financial Transaction Tax, Rates and Land Taxes really make for a modern tax system.

    Such taxation would probably make housing more affordable. Stamp duties are good too.

    • I agree with you ZACK BRANDO, anything relying on PAYE or taxable income at different rates has become unfair in the global economy. Tax physical stuff and at the amount the person is spending! Personally would not be against a stamp duty of 1 – 2 % on property and business sales. Maybe buyer and seller each pay 1% to the government on each transaction. Also there needs to be a financial services micro tax on all money coming and going from NZ overseas because profits is now one of our biggest exports! Banks are the biggest cause of this and make obscene profits in NZ due to our gutless government who often are on the boards.

  22. The decision is the clearest picture of us of ‘this is us’ fame. It’s not just some errant ‘boomer’ group.

    It’s the culture of greedy bastards with no real sense of a greater good and fairness which permeates our whole society.

    The quoted landlord with his attitude of the world ending with a capital gains tax? Give him a knighthood, put up a statue of him in Queen Street. He sees himself as the great citizen doing great things for the citizens but the recognition won’t be for that but for the fact he represents the arseholeness that rules.

  23. If there is no inflation in property prices there is no capital gain to be taxed.
    This is what government needs to address.
    D J S

  24. Interesting point – will lifting the age for getting the pension be one of the consequences of giving into those baby boomers with investment properties?

    “A diminishing generation of earners will be forced to take on the increasing tax burden of retirement- all with the prospect of a much smaller nest-egg than the asset-loaded baby boomers, when they reach that age.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/112099644/cgt-captains-call-by-jacinda-ardern-is-cynical-political-and-extremely-smart?fbclid=IwAR2rXoUlaR7SHzru0Vr3pW-XnARir7A919-el_-Awyowns9PTRpA1oHuXIE

  25. So it was all just a gigantic virtue signal then.
    Who would have thought.
    As you were inequality, poverty, homelessness.
    As you were.

    • I don’t know any country that didn’t have huge opposition to implementing a capital gains tax. It just proves that no one in the government was all that interested in a CGT.

      I liken a CGT to a UBI, nice to have just no one gets it except for people who like big long words. Now we just have to concentrate on a rental democracy because a property owning one is fucked for this generation.

    • “As you were inequality, poverty, homelessness.”

      Not necessarily. Labour still has plans for tax reform which it will be campaigning on at the next election, and a CGT would necessarily have made much difference to any of those issues.

  26. National and their relentless attack has won the day.
    This government is John Key phase two.
    Corbyn and Sanders saw through this neo liberal disease and are trying to cure it.
    The Labour party does not govern this country.
    Vested interests do.

  27. Perhaps if the vocal Left had been more supportive of a CGT and shown that strong support to Labour – instead of focused on Green MP, Golriz Ghahraman, anf the “free speech” issue – the outcome may have been a little different in at least one respect.

    We took the eye of the ball and NZ First ran with it. As Peters triumphantly spelled it out for us;

    “May I remind you, the Labour Party is in government because of my party.”

    ref:https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/387277/cgt-backdown-you-win-some-you-lose-some

    If there is one thing I’m learning, the only thing worse for the Left than being in Opposition, is being in government.

    • “If there is one thing I’m learning, the only thing worse for the Left than being in Opposition, is being in government.”

      That’s a good line Frank

      • Winston is and always has delivered.
        For Winston.
        He is the most talented and self interested politician I’ve ever seen.

    • Well said Frank

      The fixation on Golriz Gharahman and the demonisihg of the Greens is a typical case of the Left cannibalising itself

      The personalization of the free speech hysteria by targetting Gharahman is disturbing and shoes some on the Left are not above getting Whaleoilly on someone’s ass

      Misogyny. Racism. Islamophobia. Its all here

      (PS, to the Admin, if youre going to delete my comments at least have the balls to do it openly. You know, free speech, courtesy, rtc)

  28. ” Today’s right wing libertarians have reversed the original idea of laissez faire to mean freeing the rentier class from taxes. This shifts the fiscal burden onto labour and consumers (GST) – the reverse of what Adam Smith and other classical economists meant. Libertarian anthropologists draw pictures of a mythical age in which no public sector existed with no palace or temples to regulate economies and levy taxes or fees for basic public services. Such junk archaeology about a ‘natural’ or ‘primordial’ society provides a faux historical rationalisation for junk economies”

    ” Libertarian Anti government advocates of deregulation to disable the public ability to tax and govern finance, real state and other rent seeking ( The FIRE sector) The effect is to centralize planning in the hands of the finance sector. The aim of libertarian planning is privatisation leading to economic polarisation ( Young couples condemned to rent for ever), oligarchy, debt peonage (Impossible to pay off mortgages) and neofeudalism. ”

    Plus debt deflation Debts are so high that the real economy is deprived of spending to run it e.g. impossible inflated by property speculation house prices and huge mortgages to attempt to pay off over 30 years. All this passed down onto the backs of the hapless renters deprived of ever owning their own homes young couples becoming the economic peasants of this order of GREED.
    Michael Hudson J is for Junk economics.

    This government is the lipstick on the same old pig of neoliberalism. New Zealand is now run by the greedy FIRE sector

    • Nguyễn Văn Tuấn So sick and tired of 120 representatives sitting in OUR House of Parliament not doing their job of improving the economic well-being of the nation, ínstead of focussing on the welfare of the predatory oligarch creditors class in New Zealand. The hyperinflation of real estate assets has been screwing 90 per cent of Kiwis by pushing up costs. A punitive CGT is but ONE of the tools to rein in that inflation, for the benefit of the 90 per cent.

  29. Ardern keeps saying we have listened to the NZ public, and will not implement a CGT because they don’t want one. Is she really saying that even if Winston supported it, that she would turn one down? Come on Jacinda, you aren’t fooling anyone.

    • Jacinda said there will be no CGT while she is PM. As things stand at the moment that looks to me as if it could be a very long time. She didn’t need to add that. She is going to outlast Winston, so I think she has made the assessment that it is a dead duck. And there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

      D J S

  30. I think it is a bit rough to lay all the blame with Jacinda – this is an MMP coalition government and she has always bleated about consensus decision-making (perhaps making things more difficult for Labour given the way NZF roll) so made her own bed really. But you are right to say that neoliberal twaddle continues to dominate the political landscape and we will never see real justice until this is dismantled. There is a small upside to this decision – it will massively increase Labour’s chances of re-election at the next election – maybe even with enough numbers to govern alone and then … maybe we can have the CGT implemented (and people will see the sky will not fall!)

  31. What I want to know is: why was the tax working group not allowed to consider increasing income tax on the wealthy? That was the real failure of nerve.

    How is this government going to fund its campaign against poverty?

  32. What I want to know is: why was the tax working group not allowed to consider increasing income tax on the wealthy? That was the real failure of nerve.

    How is this government going to fund its campaign against poverty?

  33. Securing the next election is far more important than CGT and Jacinda has just done that. This has taken away Nationals ammunition for 2020.

    My Nat mates will be so disappointed, they thought they had a chance of regaining power with their anti CGT campaign that they now have to dump.

    • You dont think Kiwibuild, the upcoming wellness budget and all the current measures on poverty and equality getting worse are not enough for Nationsl to fight on?, wake up. National are a seriously organized machine, they were the very nearly a four term government if it wasnt for Winston. We need to smarten up and not take the next election for granted. Frankly this government when it comes to changing or improving the lives of kiwis, have so far utterly failed.

  34. The people that a CGT would have effected are not going to vote Labour in 2020 just because they have said no to a CGT.

    You only have to look at the campaign waged against it for the last ten years to see that this was all about wealth , greed and privilege.

    The idea was dead in the water from the start because NZF did not support it.
    I would have loved to have been present during the debate’s about that on the ninth floor.

    It will be interesting too see if any of the TWG recommendations are carried out and i bet if you asked the average kiwi what they are they would not have a clue because the media has only focused on one , the CGT.

    The only party that can raise tax rates without condemnation and a negative media campaign is the National party.
    Key and English did just that with GST after promising that would not raise it.

  35. Perhaps if you free speech warriors spent as much effort arguing fora capital gains tax as you did bashing Golriz, the outcome might’ve been different.

    Pathetic, truly pathetic.

    • That is why I opposed this form of government from the start, rather having seen Nats deal with Winston and destroy themselves. You are the never ending apologist, Louis.

  36. The Daily Blog has earned my respect by finally acknowledging how hypocritical this Government is. And how it is working over-time to screw the poorest and most vulnerable New Zealanders.

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