Gareth Morgan has renewed calls for tax reforms after backing comments by businessman Stephen Jennings that the tax rules "favour the old and rich".
In a speech to the NZ Initiative think tank in Auckland on Thursday, Jennings said the nation faced numerous challenges that were increasing the social divide. The overheated property market was among issues favouring some people but making it impossible for others.
"What about our children and grandchildren and people on low incomes who have no hope of buying a house? What I'd say to those [older, property-owning] people is we're storing up social and political problems that are going to come home and bite us," Jennings said.
Although he wasn't the only one to come out in support of Jennings, none put it quite so eloquently as Morgan, who tweeted: "Nice not to be the only rich prick saying that the tax system favours us. Time for a change."
Morgan followed this with a link to a story titled "How foreign corporates avoid paying tax and what we can do about it". With New Zealand estimated to be losing hundreds of millions of dollars in overseas tax annually, at least some in the public arena are calling for a change.
