GST trade-off?

Nearly 70 per cent of CEOs supported an increase in the 12.5 per cent GST rate - but only if there was a meaningful reduction in other taxes.

Craig Norgate, deputy chair of Rural Portfolio Investments, said there had been no debate as to why an increase in GST was "unpalatable".

"As a tax on consumption it will curb excess expenditure and is proven to be the most efficient tax to collect when our tax system was last fundamentally reformed, when we aligned rates and bought in the imputation rate to neutralise tax structuring," said Norgate.

"The imputation regime incentivises distribution rather than reinvestment of profits and results in the relatively high dividend yield and low capital growth in the NZ stockmarket ... We should consider scrapping the imputation regime and funding a very low corporate regime, 20 per cent, which would incentivise profit maximisation and reinvestment."