Will Labour’s incremental CGT kill the Left’s hopes again or is it strategic genius?
Labour Party narrows in on capital gains tax as policy announcement looms – Thomas Coughlan
- Labour has committed to announcing a tax policy this year.
- The party has in the past campaigned on a capital gains tax, but each time ran into trouble explaining it.
- Labour’s finance spokeswoman used questions this week to prosecute Finance Minister Nicola Willis over the Reserve Bank scandal.
I think it is fine that Labour go to the election with an incredibly incremental and meaningless CGT so as to not spook the horses.
The reality is that they need both and a lot more!
The task at hand comrades is to lift the tax yoke from the poorest and place it on the richest.
- We need properly funded public health.
- Properly funded public education.
- Properly funded public housing.
- Properly funded infrastructure.
- Properly funded mental health services.
- We need free public transport.
- We need free dental.
- We need to nationalise Early Childhood Education and make it all free.
- We need to nationalise retirement villages and build more public housing for the elderly.
- We need to fund a 3rd state backed Supermarket to break the duopoly.
- We need properly and fully funded addiction programmes.
- We need Marae Civil Defence funding.
- We need a whole new First Responder Mental Health Teams fully funded service.
There is an enormous amount of money required to actually solve the problems we face and that requires a bold new vision for tax.
We need:
- A Capital Gains tax that doesn’t include the family home.
- A Wealth Tax at the top 1%
- A sugar tax to help fund free dental
- A super tax on Vice profits from smoking, alcohol and gambling.
- $100million ring fenced for addiction services from a legal cannabis market.
- 5% Estate Duties
- First $10000 tax free
- Lower GST from 15% to 10%
- Remove GST altogether from basket of essentials (tampons, toilet paper, fresh fruit and vegetables, tooth paste)
- Financial Transaction Tax
- Pollution Tax
- Land Tax
If the Left actually want to rebuild the current public services and fund genuine solutions by growing the society positively, it is going to need more money.
Bring GST down, subsidise cost and make the wealthiest pay.
Arguing over which tepid tax to gingerly embrace is not a solution and will lead to more Labour Party incrementalism.
The other thing the Labour Party strategists are not seeing is that a strong egalitarian tax policy will bring those middle class Labour Party Auckland voters that Labour haemorrhaged to the Greens back.
For a Party that keeps saying it wants to win Labour they don’t seem to understand why they lost
Labour sacrificed Auckland for the rest of the country over the lockdown, and then added insult to injury by not recognising any of that pain with a build back that justified that sacrifice.
Labour lost working class voters because GST off fruit and vegetables and the petrol prices going back up were a slap in the face and they lost the middle classes who looked at their joke economic platform and intellectually gave their vote to the Greens for their wealth tax.
Ultimately it’s going to require the Greens and Māori Party agreeing now to a united front on negotiating with Chippy so Labour can’t bully the Greens into supporting a NZF/Labour alternative.
Labour needs more revenue to pay for the social infrastructure they champion, simply rearranging the bureaucratic structures as Jacinda did isn’t enough.
It’s going to require a Greens/Māori Party coalition to get that real change through and that’s why Labour can go to the election with their tepid CGT because in the negotiations (where the Greens will need the force of nature that is John Tamihere), Greens and te Parti Māori will be able to force Labour into a more progressive position on Tax.
Chippy can make as many ‘Captain’s calls’ as he likes, the truth is that the Greens and te Parti Māori will want more and they are prepared to fight for more.
NZF are so toxic and hateful that Chippy simply couldn’t cut any deal with them that Labour supporters would accept so pretending he can go to Winston too stop a Wealth Tax is nonsense.
The alternative is this anti-Māori, anti-Treaty, anti-Worker, anti-Renter, anti-environment hard right Government cementing into place their distortions.
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Yes, if Labour are to do anything leftwing, Hipkins will need to be thrown in the trash where he belongs or his hand will have to be forced by actual leftists.
Not too worried one way or another ,but we need to claw back the last lot of tax cuts that should never have been handed out .If the economy was as bad as Luxon and Bob the fist and his mrs said it was at the time why give free money to people .We may need to look at increasing the tax take as clearly the government is not earning enough even after gouging us hard out in the first 12 months of their term .Then there is a raft of increases coming timed to kick in after the next election such as the 12 cents per liter on fuel and increased rego and congestion charges .
As with all the polls, a Labour coalition is now a formality.
If we wanted to catch the one percenters in the tax net we could impose a bunker tax
Or if we want to keep the local and foreign 1 percenters here, instead of watching them them scuttling off to some overseas tax haven, then we need to give them something to keep them here.
Why are billionaires coming to NZ?
What is that they find so attractive about this country?
Bear with me;
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/04/08/new-zealand-one-confirmed-coronavirus-death-jacinda-ardern-watson-pkg-nr-vpx.cnn
How New Zealand became an apocalypse escape destination for Americans
By Julia Hollingsworth, CNN Business Thu July 16, 2020 10 min read
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand
By Mark O’Connell Thu 15 Feb 2018
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-boltholes-inside-doomsday-hideouts-170000871.html
Billionaire boltholes: inside the doomsday hideouts of the super-rich
Shona Jackson
27 February 2025 19 min read
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/apocalypse-now-doomsday-bunker-secretly-installed-on-nz-property-confirmed/IHQ47FV7ZJGDLMJUEA3YMUG6MM/
Apocalypse now: Doomsday bunker secretly installed on New Zealand property – confirmed
Kurt Bayer, South Island Head of News·NZ Herald 23 Feb, 2025 4 mins to read
And there’s lots more headlines like this.
Burying themselves in holes in the ground may save them from the initial blast, but if the One Percenters want to survive long term in the lifestyle they are accustomed to, then they need a fully functioning sociallly cohesive socitey capable of providing them with all the luxuries and necessities of life when they run out of canned food.
We need to turn the whole country into a safe haven, for all, not just billionaires.
This means legislating Green and Maori Party neutrality policy as state policy.
No AUKUS
No Waihopai
No Five Eyes
No FBI
No secret China police stations
No military exercises with foreign militaries
No deployment to foreign wars.
Friend to all enemy to none.
One thing that doesn’t het a mention on any forum regarding these issues, is that beneficiaries, and pensioners are paying tax on their benefits/pensions.. I don’t know what the rate is for the dole, but pensioners get taxed 11%.. That is outright theft.. Monies paid out of tax revenue getting clawed back by a morally/intellectually bankrupt excuse for a government denotes a level of incompetence, and utter disregard for the hardship losing close to $100 a week, simply because Nickola the blimp has no clue whatsoever as to what her proper job description even means, let alone give a toss about the obvious lack of any kind of social conscience she openly displays, and actually wears as a badge of honour….
This utter joke of a “government” is nothing but a crime syndicate, without even the class to be called a “Mafia”.. In fact, the actual mafia would do a much better job, and without the blowhardery that the current “white ant” infestation in the beehive mistakes for adult conversation..
Labour will stick to the neoliberal blueprint.
The salient question is; how many times will you let them gaslight you otherwise?
I would look at introducing a wealth tax, a CG tax and borrow more money as we have a low debt to GDP ratio especially when compared to other countries. We voted the wrong government in (not me) they have wreaked havoc on our economy, created unnecessary social division, increased homelessness and created the conditions for high unemployment this is not good, and many are suffering unnecessarily. This current government wants to carry on with the same plan with ACT wanting to cut more government services and NZF wanting to exploit our natural environments. This is the choices we have, I hope people think long and hard before they vote next year.
The list is made up of a great many nice to have the only thing missing is the money tree as the tax will dry up when people discover there is no advantage in taking the risks of running big business venture.