Don’t get me wrong, the Green Party tax policy is a great first step, but it is only PART of the solution to the challenges we face.
They have set very low thresholds for the highest taxes in what is a very simplistic tax swap which does sweet fuck all to raise the money needed for our failing social and physical infrastructure let alone the radical adaption we need to fund for climate change.
Yes those under $125000 will be better off, good, but the reliance on a wealth tax to do ALL the heavy lifting here is simply delusional.
They want to raise $12billion from .7% of the population.
That’s a fuck of lot of cash to get from .7% of the population, and it’s a lot of cash that will simply go into other peoples pockets, which again is great, but doesn’t provide us with the necessary cash to build the new hospitals, the new schools, to employ more teachers, more drs, more police etc etc etc.
A land tax (as proposed by TOP) means the wealthy can’t take their assets and leave.
A financial transaction tax (as proposed by MANA and Māori Party) would tax the speculators and provide the resources to build the broken social infrastructure we have.
A sugar tax can fund free dental.
Legalised Cannabis market would create $1.1billion per year that could be ringfenced for proper drug rehabilitation.
Windfall taxes can mitigate our obscene inequality.
A wealth tax is PART of the solution, but it simply can’t be the only solution because the whole thing will implode when it comes to getting that $12billion out of .7% of the population.
Note – I’m not even adding in how absurdly incompetent I think the Green tacticians are in being able to draft this into law and pass it by the way.
Great first step from the Greens, but we need a giant leap for Green kind.
This ain’t it.
Ask the Greens where the extra money for all the increased spending on social programs will come from.
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Is there a reason that the poster looks like it was designed for a kindergarten wall?
I suppose it is fitting for something so toothless and inoffensive to the powerful. They’ve opted for a Clintonite, ‘Never Bernie’ policy: rejecting a job guarantee, in favour of a U.B.I. that is actually lower than current welfare benefits. (Is that really a solution to mass job losses from automation?)
Their income tax rates are lower than under Tony Abbott and John Howard (and their G.S.T. is higher). At least their corporate tax rate is higher, but there is no corresponding increase in tariffs to prevent off-shoring (or any plan to rebuild domestic industry).
Good points as usual Kris R.. And Martyn you didn’t mention training for young people willing to learn old skills for making things to replace what we now blithely import under the greed-ridden, narrow and inhuman Ricardo economic line of which ‘comparative advantage’ is a mainstay. (I’ve put more detail about him in the Open Mike as it’s off-topic).
This is very interesting and informative on Ricardo’s economics. People who don’t read O referred to as bozos yesterday. Read this link and don’t be one of them!
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/david-ricardo.asp
Comparative Advantage Theory
Among the notable ideas that Ricardo introduced was the theory of comparative advantage, which argued that countries can benefit from international trade by specializing in the production of goods for which they have a relatively lower opportunity cost in production even if they do not have an absolute advantage in the production of any particular good.
For example, a mutual trade benefit would be realized between China and the United Kingdom from China specializing in the production of porcelain and tea and the United Kingdom concentrating on machine parts. Ricardo is prominently associated with the net benefits of free trade and the detriment of protectionist policies. Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage produced offshoots and critiques that are discussed to this day.
Martyn. How will you guarantee that all this tax money won’t get pissed away by Labour with no visible results? Because that’s the real problem. If you add up every dollar wasted by this govt, the total would be fucking staggering! You probably would not need half your tax ideas.
Martyn – It is nice to see the Greens finally getting their act together…but, I understand this is a TOP policy
LVT is a TOP policy because it makes sense – land value taxes are efficient. If you tax land the quantity of land in the economy doesn’t change.
If you tax wealth, income, spending etc… all these things change.
Wealth tax is a Green policy because it doesn’t make sense, but plays well to the base 🙂
Matt – Thank you
While I agree with Martyn that the pie needs to be divided more evenly l can’t see how raising taxes on those earning between $120-$150 will benefit anyone except the beneficiaries of the tax collected. Those, and I would say the majority of earners who fall into a bracket between $120 and up to $200 thousand are people with mortgages and struggling small businesses. Because NZ has a small population a wealth tax that accumulates enough funds to do important stuff was always going to end up targeting taxpayers that are not particularly wealthy. What you don’t have as a suggestion is ways to incentivise and grow the economy. Always just dividing up the ever shrinking pie.
The shrinking pie dilemma.
Unintended consequence? Or something else….
Shrinking pies are the result of unproductive policy,glaring example Labour Government.
People want for better times and that’s fair but they rely on someone else to do it,yet they despise the people who can do it.
“National for a thriving New Zealand economy and all the benefits that bringe to everyone.”…Bob the first.
What is a “bringe” Bob the first?
Probably you no longer post Bob, you are truly an idiot!
So obviously all of us on TDB can agree, dismiss anything Bob has to say as it makes no sense.
Problem is that New Zealand has an unproductive economy being further hamstrung by farmers hating Greens.
Question is; how long for (as in year after year after year) can an economy think of new ways to tax without increasing productivity. For example, that 12 billion from the 0.7 percentiles will be available, budgeted for and spent ad infinitum? Once you have stripped 12 billion a year out of the 0.7 and they have nothing left will the budget collapse?
Not saying they (0.7 percentiles) should not pay their fair share, but at what point will the diminishing returns through taxation actually make you answer the question on how to improve productivity.
Perhaps a posting on how to improve productivity? All we hear is how to tax more.
The Chardonnay Socialist’s, Sir Ian Taylor, “open letter to Chloe S” is worth a read.
I find it strange that an “open letter” is published behind a paywall. It is available on Kiwiblog free for all to read.
We need to reform our tax system so that we can meet the needs of our nation.
And banish paywalls! Allow 5 free views or something. Three would be enough for me on The NZ Herlad.
Yes, interesting. We certainly do need the risk takers, those with vision and drive. Hats off! But all too often it comes down to privatizing profits but socializing losses. Chardonnay, anyone?
…Who thought a banannas in pajamas theme was appropriate? Accidentally apt perhaps.
Dreaming again Martyn?
Their poster has so many stars, one would think they are wishing upon a star….
And about as likely to come true.
Just LOL
Really?
Are the gweens still a thing? With the poles their MPs are mounting lately. They may all be getting ready to stick themselves to poles throughout the country and at the same time baffle everyone with the messaging this sends out.
How confusing for them and the public. Will this kind of campaign work? Distraction and Disinterest campaigning?
I don’t think it’s gunna work.
They’ve got more chance of surviving if they were to all go out to the park and pick up dogshit. That’ll attract them some attention and draw a crowd possibly. They could also beat up a few old folks while they’re at it!
Greens absurdly incompetent,that much is very true.
But not as incompetent as your grammar Bob. That much is very true.
I totally agree. To those saying the rich will leave,where are they gonna go to that is lower taxed and how come the rich haven’t left Australia despite it’s extremely high taxes? And why do we care that a few unproductive rich people might leave NZ
If they do, we could be like the yanks and tax you on any income no matter where you live on earth.
NZ desperately needs a sugar tax. In 12 years experts believe that over 50% of the global population will be obese thanks to gen z and below.
Obesity levels of 50% or more will be the end of universal healthcare. Add to that an enormous amount of pensioners and we’re all screwed.
We must start taxing sugar and fatty foods, putting cigarette stye pictures of rotting organs on big Macs, cokes etc.
It’s not going to sort itself out, society is now glamourizing obesity and “health at any size” and people don’t even have to leave the house anymore thanks to UberEATS and door dash.
We must tax sugar and fatty foods like we tax cigarettes and alcohol, it’s not about the money the taxes will bring in, it’s about discouraging obesity, to save up he healthcare system.
Their money will leave!
We need people here that grow the economy not people that drain it.
We need people here that understand English, that’s not you Bob.
“And why do we care that a few unproductive rich people might leave NZ”. Their money is not “unproductive”. They don’t have their millions in a vault and do a daily Mc Srooge dive and swim in it. That money is invested to generate more income.
What the government should be doing is getting that investment working for the economy in a productive environment.
Rich people need the poor to buy their goods and services. The state want the transaction to be beneficial to both parties so it can tax them to provide state services all parties need.
This three way partnership between capital, labour (small l) and state needs to be strengthened not weakened. Mind you the marxist will claim that the state can be the capitalist but Marxism (being easily corralled by dictators to their own needs) has not been a run away success.
Even the poster child; Cuba is not a Marxist state. Worth a read:
https://socialistaction.org/2011/08/12/a-marxist-analysis-of-cuba/
“we qualify the designation of Cuba as a workers state by adding that it is “‘one lacking as yet the forms of democratic proletarian rule,’ meaning that while it is not ‘deformed’ in the sense of having Stalinists in power, the state is not under the democratic control of the workers and peasants….” ”
The rich haven’t left Australia due to taxation as the system their is graduated to a much better level of fairness. Their taxation bands move with the inflation so that it does not (as in NZL) equate to “the more money the worker gets in pay, the more the state collects in tax”.
Proper education is what is required.
A society that tolerates gangs, is on a slippery path.
A society that confuses “fairness and equity” with equal outcomes, is on a slippery road.
A society that does not celebrate free speech is on a slippery road.
Their level of thinking is nearly always fairytale stuff.
Talk about thinking Bob, you’re the last person given your appalling grammar. Your level of thinking is fairytale stuff.
Martyn. How will you guarantee that all this tax money won’t get pissed away by Labour with no visible results? Because that’s the real problem. If you add up every dollar wasted by this govt, the total would be fucking staggering! You probably would not need half your tax ideas.
Exactly right – instead of just taxing us all to death they should show some respect for the money they currently get. Provincial Growth Fund – any growth or jobs? Who knows. Who cares – pissed up against the wall and given to mates and mates of mates
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/kate-macnamara-provincial-growth-fund-of-the-long-black-cloud/EZXPBLH4OZCEJNKMSMY6RYIBVA/
And tax Apple, Meta, Amazon – where did that conversation disappear to?
Once the the wealth tax is introduced they’ll slowly start ‘tweaking’ it so it applies to more and more people. Like boiling the frog.
Someone should teach them what a ‘wharepaku’ is and how to clean it because that’s what they’ll be doing.
The Greens won’t get the chance to realize any policy whatsoever.
You cannot expect to be elected when you alienate most of the population and your only mates are now considered unelectable as well. Good riddance to both of them.
It’s not part of the solution. It will become part of the problem!
Hold on a minute!
Didn’t the minister of the Homeless not spend the $25m Budgeted for the Homeless on the Homeless?
Didn’t she spend it?
Were there too many cis folks claiming to be homeless that she decided as the minister of the Homeless to cancel providing cis people with accommodation and housing because they weren’t her kind of people?
There’s a story there somewhere? Anyone got a hook up with a journo at rnz maybe? If there are any left?
By finding the solution through higher taxes is an admission of failure.It’s gouging.
Reduce wasteful spending,increase revenue.
That I’m afraid is beyond the skill level of the personnel who make up Labour/Greens/Maori parties.
“National for a thriving New Zealand economy and all the benefits that bringe to everyone.” Bob the first.
Terrible grammatical skill level by Bob.