Half of Kiwi business owners oppose GST hike

Business owners in the hospitality and retail sectors are showing the highest rates of dissatisfaction with a GST increase. Photo / Hawkes Bay Today

More than half of Kiwi business owners are opposed to a proposed hike in GST mooted in next week's budget, and many are struggling to understand the current regulatory environment at all.

The latest MYOB business monitor of more than 1000 New Zealand business owners has found 31 per cent are dissatisfied with the Government's support of their business, with Wellington business owners (31 per cent) showing the most dissatisfaction of any region.

Business owners in the retail and hospitality (40 per cent) and construction and trades (37 per cent) sectors showed the highest levels of industry-based dissatisfaction.

MYOB New Zealand general manager Julian Smith said dissatisfaction was a direct impact of the recession - with many of the hardest hit regions and sectors displaying the highest levels of dissatisfaction.

Several existing pieces of legislation had also come in for criticism from Kiwi business owners, including the RMA and ACC changes.

Smith said the Government needed to work more closely with businesses to help them to understand how any changes might affect them and communicate how those changes should apply.

"Kiwi business owners want greater simplicity, not more complexity - making business life easier, not harder when it comes to business compliance - and every change makes a difference to the time they have to focus on improving productivity and performance."

"Faced with too many changes, many businesses will likely not apply them correctly - undermining any economic or social benefit of the change - or at worst, the changes will actually hamper New Zealand's economic recovery."

Smith said the Government needed to focus on helping businesses to understand what they were trying to achieve and making it as easy as possible to apply the legislation in their business.