Some of us weren’t far off with the gambling levy, being an online service after all.
Actually some solid proposals there, I’m impressed.
Some of us weren’t far off with the gambling levy, being an online service after all.
Actually some solid proposals there, I’m impressed.
Meh. For economist there exists an equal and opposite economist. I know the right wing hates the idea of people paying less at the supermarket but I think for every one of you who supposedly had respect for labour and now lost it there are lots of ordinary people who are looking forward to it.
I think New Zealand politicians rely on people here not knowing much about tax systems in other countries.
The way we freak out about it in our media and public forums, no one would guess that pretty much everywhere else in the Western world taxes capital gains, or that it’s totally normal to carve out consumption tax exemptions or lower thresholds.
We also tax capital gains though. The bright line test and all that.
Which is only meant to capture people who flip houses. And it looks like National wants to weaken even that again.
I am OK with capturing people who flip houses. I don’t think we should be punishing people for buying a house and living in it long term.
And fuck national. All they are going to do is to drive house prices back up again.
Your comment illustrates my wider point - people in New Zealand see a lot of CGT as “punishing people”, yet it’s just a normal tax on a profit in most countries, no more a punishment than taxing wages is a “punishment for working” or consumption tax is a “punishment for eating”.
Yeah I think National want house prices higher.
Most countries make an exception for the family home when it comes to CGT.
But yes income tax is punishment for working and consumption tax is punishment for consumption.
We want to encourage retirees to sell their large house and move into a smaller one so we should not impose CGT on property sales if the person lived in it for a long time. If you are hellbent on punishing people then at least make an exception if they buy another house within a year.