Budget 2024: Where are the billions of dollars for tax cuts coming from? What we know so far

• National’s tax cuts will be the centrepiece of the Budget on May 30, and Finance Minister Nicola Willis has been open about funding them partly by slashing government spending.
• National campaigned on adjusting the tax thresholds in a way that would cost almost $9 billion over four years, alongside other tax changes worth an additional $5.6b over four years. How these would be paid for was immediately questioned, and since the coalition Government was formed, Willis’ task has been more difficult as National dropped its proposal for a foreign buyer tax.
• Willis hasn’t said whether the tax relief she will announce this week will be the same as what National campaigned on, but it will provide relief to working New Zealanders and will be paid for by a mix of new revenue streams as well as savings. So where has the slash come from?

$7.47 billion over four years

This was revealed in Willis’ mini-Budget in December, and includes:

• $2.61b by scrapping several policies and projects including free ECE for 2-year-olds ($1.18b), Let’s Get Wellington Moving ($525 million), Labour’s RMA reforms ($302m), Fair Pay Agreements ($65m), subsidised public transport for 5 to 12-year-olds and 13 to 24-year-olds ($265m), industry transformation plans ($127m), and the clean car discount ($50m).
• $2b from the Emissions Trading Scheme by scrapping the GIDI fund subsidising businesses to cut emissions ($647m), and returning committed funding from the Climate Emergency Response Fund ($900m) and the National Land Transport Fund ($500m).
• $2.8b from tax and benefit changes (including $2.31b from ending commercial buildings depreciation, and $676m by indexing benefits to inflation instead of wage growth), but returning the bright-line test to two years will cost the Government $180m. Not included in this (and more than offset by it) is the phasing-in of interest deductibility for landlords (which will cost the Government $2.9b).

$1.5b in annual savings from slimming down the public service

This also includes about 5000 job losses or disestablished roles following public service bosses being asked to find href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/what-we-know-so-far-about-the-public-sector-savings-and-proposed-job-cuts-the-front-page/FUV4ET7OLJG7HIMSYO7O2AJ5AA/" target="_blank">6.5 to 7.5 per cent in savings, and ministers going line-by-line through departmental spending.

A small proportion of these roles would have occurred regardless of a change in government due to organisational changes that would have happened anyway. Yesterday, Willis said there were 2250 fewer roles and 1150 vacancies that won’t be filled following ministers’ and chief executives’ review of government spending, with “just over” 500 further roles identified in addition to the baseline exercise. This totals 3900 roles/vacancies.

Willis said there were more than 240 “initiatives... many of which we had never heard of before” - and which will be detailed on Thursday – that had either had some funding cut or been axed altogether. These have “freed up considerable cash” to pay for tax relief, and also for more teachers, the boost to Gumboot Friday, and for Surf Life Saving. It has also allowed programmes that had time-limited funding – including for Pharmac and for school lunches – to continue to be funded.

She said “hundreds” of frontline roles will be added including teachers, health workers, police, Corrections officers, and road maintenance crews (to fill potholes), and overall job creation will “likely” outweigh job reduction.

The public service cuts/savings include:

• $442m over four years from Corrections, which has been allocated to hiring more staff, funding rehabilitation programmes for remand prisoners, and building 810 more prison beds
• $107m from the Defence Force ($99m) and the Ministry of Defence ($8m) by ending projects, reducing international and domestic travel, and decreasing contractor and consultant spending. The savings are being allocated towards boosting pay for Defence Force staff, upgrading its NH90 helicopter fleet and replacing 40-year-old Unimogs and Pinzgauer trucks.
• 447 fewer roles at Oranga Tamariki, 391 jobs at the Ministry for Primary Industries including 133 existing roles, and 341 roles at the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, while the numbers at the Ministry of Education (605) and the Ministry of Social Development (712, including some voluntary redundancy) are higher.
• The Ministry of Health is looking to disestablish 271 roles and propose a restructured new 137 roles.

Stopping the money tap, altering programmes, avoiding future big bills

This includes refusing the $1.47b KiwiRail request to support the plan for Cook Strait’s mega-ferries. It’s unclear whether the previous Government, had it remained in power, may have also declined to throw more money at the project, or what the current Government might spend to plug the infrastructure gap (ageing ferries) that the investment was meant to fill.

The Government is claiming savings of $107m a year by delivering a no-frills school lunches programme.

Last week it stopped the First Home Grant scheme, which is expected to save $245 million over a four-year (2024-28) period, $140m of which is allocated to community housing providers to deliver 1500 new social housing places.

And the Government has stopped Auckland Light Rail and the Lake Onslow hydro scheme, both of which held significant fiscal liability risk ($15b for the former, $16b for the latter). This leaves the Government without the transport benefits in Auckland if light rail had ever been completed, or the safety net for the country’s energy lulls if the hydro-project had ever come to fruition.

The Government has made a series of transport announcements for Auckland, and has plans to increase energy supply. It is also possible that the cancellation of the Lake Onslow project could encourage more investment in the energy sector, given the chilling effect it was having on investment.

Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.