Former National Party finance minister Ruth Richardson – best remembered for 1991′s “Mother of All Budgets” – has criticised the Inland Revenue Department’s new tax report as a “vanity project” for Revenue Minister David Parker.
The IRD study into the tax rate paid by a sample of 311 wealthy New Zealanders found they paid a median effective tax rate of 9.4 per cent, compared to 20.2 per cent for the average rate paid by a “middle wealth” New Zealander.
The report was commissioned by Parker, who said after its release that “tradies, nurses, school teachers, hospitality workers, hairdressers, cleaners, engineers and small business owners all pay much higher effective tax rates than their wealthier fellow Kiwis”.
Speaking to deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan for On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast, Richardson – who was finance minister from 1990-93 – described the study as the “nosy Parker” report and as “a hymn of hate against those who dare to have any wealth”.