Why Green Party wealth tax is only part of the solution and can’t be the only solution and why FTT and Land Tax are
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.
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.
Just LOL
Really?
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.
“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”.
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.