If Labour put as much energy into regulating capitalism as they do stymieing David Parker – the Revolution would be won and over already
Behind the scenes there is an ideological knife fight occurring inside the Labour Party.
It’s pointless, counter productive and so on brand for Labour.
On one side there are those who want a wealth tax aimed at the mega wealthy to enable the first $20 000 to be tax free.
This would benefit pensioners, beneficiaries, the poor, the working classes, the middle classes and renters.
It would take the tax yoke off the poor and put it on the wealthy.
The wealthy gain their wealth off the backs of civil society and the infrastructure that society provides.
They can pay more.
Opponents cry out that we can’t tax unrealised wealth. Like fuck we can’t.
If they can borrow against their wealth, we can sure as fuck tax it.
If this means the multi-millionaire and the billionaire have to sell assets to cover their wealth tax, so fucking be it.
Do anyone of you care if these rich pricks can’t buy the latest personal jet so we can feed hungry kids in school and build better hospitals with more staff?
Fuck them!
However.
The anti-wealth tax clique are doing all they can to kill off the wealth tax by putting forward a Capital Gains Tax.
It won’t make any money for 3 years, so just in time to have all the political benefit go to the Opposition while you struggle for a term.
There has always been a group inside Labour who would prefer to control the losing side rather than lose control of the winning side.
The naked reality is the economy is so fucked and the possibility of an inflation spike generated by Trump’s tariffs by pushing up the dollar and causing petrol to jump means far more pain is still to come.
Labour has to offer REAL relief to people or their solution will sound weak, just the way the pitiful GST off fruit and vegetables sounded like Labour didn’t understand their pain.
Giving Kiwis their first $20 000 tax free funded by a wealth tax on the 1% is fucking economic justice!
What the Christ is the point of the Labour Party if it isn’t there to challenge the economic hegemony used to crush the lower classes for a rancid Plutocracy!
STAND AND FIGHT LABOUR!
The truth is we need BOTH taxes.
We need a Wealth tax that will provide the first $20 000 Tax Free for every Kiwi – AND we need a Capital Gains Tax that doesn’t include the occupied home.
We also need a sugar tax to fund free dental.
We need a pollution tax to fund free public transport.
A financial transaction tax to punish speculators.
If Labour put as much energy into regulating capitalism as they do stymieing David Parker – the Revolution would be won and over already Comrades!
Take the Summer to understand the enormity of the challenge in front of us.
Take the tax yoke off the poor and place it on the uber wealthy.
Tax the 1% to enable everyone (them included) get their first $20 000 tax free.
A Capital Gains Tax is important, but it isn;t the solution.
After 2 more years of this crazy fucking Government, Kiwis will want a solution.
If Labour wants to win the Auckland middle class vote they lost to the greens, it takes more than a Capital Gains Tax!

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Out of idle curiosity, at what value does your wealth tax kick in?
The greens wealth tax was 2 million per individual and 10,000 tax free.
If they had moved straight after the tax reveiw by Micheal Cullen and his team we would be way ahead of the 8 ball .Then David Parker ,the hardest working member of paliament ,put foward new tax reforms to have them over ruled .Is it no wonder he has told them to jam it where the sun dont shine .
TPM had by far the best tax policy last election but due to racisim not many bothered to look at it .
Te Pati Maori did have the best tax policy of any party, followed by the Greens. I heard Barbara Edmonds on with ‘Guyon for 30’. He asked her whether they would back track on the tax breaks that the Nats introduced. Honestly talk about WET ‘well you know it is very hard to take money off people who have been given it.
All the taxes should be brought in including a Financial Transaction Tax. We are the third most traded currency in the world, and even if some stop trading we would still be really much better off.
How do people seriously think we can have a liberal democracy without taxing properly. If people move away from Aotearoa because money is the only thing keeping them here they should sod off.
Hipkins should go, he did not introduce a capital gains tax ‘because we didn’t campaign on it’ but it was Jacinda who said it wouldn’t be introduced in her Prime ministerial term. Hipkins is dumb. I wonder if he still believes in his own part in a university protest when he was a long haired lout… probably not, gutless!
Labour need a proper CGT to give it the social licence it requires to get it through. They need a CGT that is encourages new builds but not in a way that the speculative market keeps controlling the economy of the country:
CGT on all property sales except the primary residence – that is important for the social licence but it also helps future-proof financial independence for retirees.
A reverse bright-line test on new builds so that if you build a new home and sell it within 2 years, you don’t pay the CGT. This encourages investment into NEW housing, not just buying and selling old homes for ever more $$$$.
A yearly land tax on all vacant land that has been subdivided and zoned residential, but if you build a home on there within three years your tax paid over those three years is returned to you. If not, tax all paid is non-recoverable and you continue to pay the yearly tax. If you were the one to subdivide the land, you would be exempt from this tax.(This discourages land banking). Perhaps a commercial version would be worth developing.
For farmers, make the CGT on the value of the HOUSE CGT free.
Make it a tax switch so that income taxes go down for the threshold as mentioned above.
I like the idea of introducing more income tax rates for the more wealthy income brackets, like TPM have, but instead of the numbers jumping from the current top tax rate of 39% up to 48% above $300K, only go up in 2% increments – I just think this will help the social licence to get this across to the voting public.
Also, for infrastructure, of the 15% GST, you break it down so that 12.5% goes to the govt and 2.5%(for the 15% total) goes to the council where the GST was earned and it is ring fenced for infrastructure.
And tackle govt waste spending – no more $40K taxpayer parties for someone leaving a department, etc.
But it needs to be sold. I think it’s an easy sell, but there needs to be a converted effort to make sure people know it’s not MORE tax, just a reshuffling of the tax base.
Yes incrementally is probably best but 48% ultimately is not enough. There are lots of things they should be doing. Why did I get the winter energy payment, it should be reserved for those that really need it and I suspect it is not the only benefit handed out to all. Any government department that does those ridiculous $40,000 parties and team building junk is crap and the person signing it off should be down the road.
Labour doesn’t deserve David Parker. Hipkins still trying to ‘have a bob each way’ is not good Labour policy He should drop it, get behind Parker and make Labour what it ought to be.
We oldies remember our parents talking about the Great Depression. It was horrifying to us spoilt 60s children.
However, it looks as if tRump could well be deliberately engineering another one so as to allow his billionaire friends to make money.
They are not interested in the environmental dangers or danger to wildlife. They have no concerns about how it will all affect their descendants. There is no satisfying their personal greed. It’s all just a game.
Dangerous people have risen to the top.
Our own govt. is almost a dictatorship, no accountability, no concern for ordinary people’s lives, no effort to improve people’s lives. In fact, no brains really.
They are not there to govern NZ as a beautiful and valuable little nation. They are not proud to be our NZ govt. They are simply preparing the ground for a fire sale to wealthy friends.
The Treaty of Waitangi is an impediment to them at the moment. I for one, hope the king does intervene. He is The Crown. David Seymour is NOT the Crown. The Treaty was between The Crown and the ordinary people of NZ represented by Māori, at the time.
This institution we have, called ‘government’ is only there because the Treaty allows it. I hope King Charles takes that treaty as seriously as Māori and ordinary NZ’ders do.
Recent immigrants to NZ have to understand that this country was attractive enough for them to want to live here BECAUSE we had the Treaty of Waitangi which has so far protected us somewhat, from the ravages of foreign greed and exploitation. Without it, this country would not have seemed as attractive to them.
We would thank them NOT to support Seymour, and spoil it for us all.
I’ve tried, but I can’t think of anyone who deserves David Parker.
I don’t think much of your turn of phrase re Parker HF.
I do like Martyn’s –
There has always been a group inside Labour who would prefer to control the losing side rather than lose control of the winning side.
thats because he is way more clever than you
You’ve got your Davids wrong.
Parker may not be splashy but he has other attributes.
Best comment on the daily blog all year 2024.
1 million % agree.
Migrants need to learn the importance of the treaty of waitangi to our countries future and past.
Nailed it, Joy
Ugh. Yes it makes sense, and yes its a good idea. But how the f are you going to convince the monied swing voters to come back to labour with he promise of higher taxes?
Everyone who agrees with the idea of a wealth tax ALREADY votes Labour or Green.
Tell them that after the tax system is redesigned that they won’t have to remortage their home or second mortgage their home or gurantor aussie bank losses by acting as bank of mum&dad till they die because their kids will be better off and able to save a big enough deposit for a house.
We need the .01% financial transaction tax on every financial transaction.
Ditch the gst completely.
Screw the CGT and bring on the wealth tax at between 2 mill and 5 mill per individual.
Yes financial transaction tax is a must.
Should someone be able to own a $10,000 house they live in, how appallingly greedy!
“Makes sense but Labour are probably too scared to take on the banks”.
It would be supported by every small business owning, tax collector (but not their accountants).
but you would need a cashless system .All ready tax is being dodged because people pay in cash .If we were cashless then all transactions would need to go through a bank so all that business like drug dealing would need to go through the bank .We could probably have a 5% tax and drop all other taxes .Even the super rich would be caught and would have to pay 5% on those multi million transactions .
Yes lets have the 0.1% FTT. But have 5 % GST and have 4% remain in area where spent, and that will provide public works etc there.he people some encouragement in their rating area where they can see it being useful, watch and channel it.
If you know your history you would be more concerned at what comes after the Revolution than what went before.
The Labour brand is well and truly trashed. No one trusts them any more. I know so many people who will never vote Labour again for what they have done since 1984.
And David Parker may have the best of intentions, but people like that who take a simple problem and come up with a devastatingly complex solution are a liability not an asset.
We need a new party Workers And Renters, WAR for short.
We don’t need a new party get supporting Te Pati Maori and the Greens they are the future, they do care about the disenfranchised. Frankly I am over hearing about the ‘squeezed middle’.
Rangi you are correct that there has been no party specifically supporting workers and renters since Labour changed from a being socialist party to a neoliberal one in 1984.
Well maybe – WAR for short but not for long!
With Chippy at the helm radical tax changes will not happen in Labour….Captains Call anyone. Great piece Martyn it would be really transformative if only these ideas could be put into place ….but feels like an impossible dream.
The great thing about a weaith tax on the top 1% is that the 99% don’t pay it and it would immediately raise a lot of tax. (Unlike a CGT which delivers little tax in the first five years.)
The bad thing is that in countries where wealth taxes have been imposed the wealthy generally decline to pay them.
Many countries that introduced them have since repealed them. This research explains the problem:
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/eu/wealth-tax-impact/
NZ would be particularly vulnerable to the 1% moving their lives to Australia where there is currently no wealth tax.
Well then let’s introduce a tax on empty houses, do they call it a ghost tax? Let them go to Oz. and charge for going and arriving.
The rich are that way because they took risks and worked hard .They invest the money they have in exploits that creat work for those that just want to be wage slaves. Hit these people too hard and they will leave taking the jobs with them and the country loss all the tax they would pay so we would all.be poorer.
That is bullshit.
The first $20,000 tax free is such an easy sell.
It’s like what our richer neighbour’s across the ditch pay/receive.
Everyone gets the benefi, its so hugely equal even David Seymours wealthiest donors get to enjoy it. (Just don’t tell them it’s a progressive poll tax).
Speaking of Nicola-no-boats, looks like she might have found her second hand yota.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zMC8so3TsJI
Tax policy needs to survive more than one cycle of government if it is have any meaningful purpose.
A wealth tax will not survive a change of government. However, a reasonable CGT might do so.
Keating introduced a CGT in Australia in 1987. It was at a lower rate than income tax, it exempted the family home, it was inflation indexed. When Howard got elected in 1996, the CGT survived. There had been enough of a tax switch (first $12,000 tax free) and the CGT was seen as OK, so that it survived and has done so to this day.
But a swingeing wealth tax will not survive. It affects too many people in too deep a way. For instance, most farms (a typical dairy farm is worth about $6 to 7 million)) would have to pay at least $50,000 extra tax each year. Farms are not profitable enough for that to be sustainable. If a left government introduces such a tax, the tax will be gone with the next right government. In fact the wealth tax probably dooms the left government in the election immediately following the introduction of the wealth tax.
A wealth tax would be that, on wealth. That would be on everything after expenses. We already know how good the rich are at claiming expenses that are non taxable. So your argument is just a load of frakin bullshit you bleeding wanker.
A wealth tax would be that, on wealth. That would be on everything after expenses. We already know how good the rich are at claiming expenses that are non taxable. So your argument is just a load of frakin bullshit you bleeding wanker.