Your views, August 19

Reaction to Election Blog [link at bottom of page]

I believe that Raymond Miller's most recent post amounts to an epistemological litany. He has a clear conviction that the politics of his 'liberal left' are unconditionally valid and popular. When a survey contradicts him he simply suggests the survey is flawed. The only new information he is prepared to bring is the fact that Labour and National are neck and neck in the polls. From this he concludes that tax cuts, handouts to Maori, morals, and immigration are not really important issues. Actually, even his representative of the liberal left, Labour, are electioneering strongly for votes with treaty time limit proposals and now tax relief. They have in this term made immigration conditions more rigorous with English language requirements, and Tamihere at least has tried an anti PC backlash. Unless Miller can provide more cogent evidence that the politics of his 'liberal left' are still on the agenda it is mischievous to suggest such. The reality is that both major parties are pursuing policy that looks more like Act's than their own, and the question is who best to implement it?
- David 


Reaction to Labour's plan funded by business taxpayers [link at bottom of page]

New Zealand still has a big game of catch up footy to play on infrastructure investment since the lean and mean 90s. Most of the taxation revenue collected is spent within New Zealand but a large proportion of any tax cuts would be realised in dividends paid offshore. Therefore it makes sense to collect the money as taxation revenue if only to ensure the best flow-on to the domestic economy.
- Ure Kismet

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It is not a surplus for the government to give back, it is outright theft through massive over taxation to finance profligate spending on election bribes.
- Andrew Campbell

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I own a successful business generating +5 mill. turnover and if a Labour led coalition is returned to power will take my family and my business to Australia. I attended a business awards function last night and watched/listened to Helen Clark insult my intelligence for the last time - the audience hung on every word rapt, like rats behind a pied piper or lemmings towards a cliff. It amazes me when people say Don Brash or National don't have policy or Don has no charisma. Helen's the most successful used car saleswoman (nee art forger) with a political science degree and no business experience. She has a caucus that can't boast a member that hasn't been implicated in one scandal or another. No, It will be time to give up and leave the country to the students, immigrants, do-gooders, racists and conservationists. The last concern I have is tax cuts other than to stimulate the economy and business growth for the benefit of all. I am used to paying six figures in tax and it's neither here nor there - my number one concern is education and safety in all their forms for my young family and a common sense society.
- Carl

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Re the tax cuts for families. Why are they holding such a carrot now? Had nothing from Cullen previously. Also why not look at the fuel tax. Drop that and everyone gets a bite of the cherry. Also singles and couples with no children and the middle aged whose kids have left home are deprived. We are the ones that will be paying for such a stupid idea! No I will not be voting for Labour.
- Kathy

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I don't vote for policy. I vote for people who make policy. I won't trust Labour who change their mind frequently. Why do we have a problem for education and health? Because we haven't enough money. It is time to make the pie bigger rather than how to divide the pie.
- Jing Gao

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The Labour Government which used to stand by a manifesto and by policies which underpinned that manifesto, have changed course, in a potentially dangerous direction. It appears that the new and undeclared manifesto is power and the policies that underpin it, are the policies of "whatever it takes to remain in power".
- Ken Ramsay

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If the government borrowed two thirds of the capital requirement and returned another $2 billion of the surplus to taxpayers then it could afford to have no tax on earnings up to $30,000 per year. This is according to the Government's budget website "Treasury Key Facts Taxpayers website". I would prefer tax cuts for all, rather than some.
- Edward Lyons

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Labour's plan would hurt our economy in the long-run. First of all, it would scare away overseas investment, NZ suffers. Then, our current unemployment rate would rise again. Secondly, the number of families without children or not planning to have any is rising, and these families are being kinda ignored. Why would they help raising other people's kids? It would lead to another brain drain thing. Also, if we have this amount of surplus, why don't we pay off some of our debt, as 46% of our petrol money goes to the government and a portion of that goes to the interest we have to pay debt.
- Elmen

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I don't think that taxes should be reduced. As a middle income earner I am pleased to pay the tax that I do because I know that it goes to government services. And I think that the current government surplus should be divided between investing in health, education and the environment, and some $ should also be saved just in case there is a budget blow-out in future, as well as on the state's foreign debts.
- Mark Harvey

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The surplus definitely should be used to reduce tax. Of the two Working for Families announcements and the Student Loans announcement the benefit to me is - zero. I have a wife and child at home as well, but receive no break AND am expected to fund the costs of two thirds of other New Zealand families. Why not help everybody and make the first $10,000, or $15,00 or even $20,000 earned tax-free for everyone?
- A van der Voort

* * *Reducing tax lowers the administrative costs and compliance costs associated with government revenue gathering. Thus you get a double benefit to tax payer. If you pay back money to the tax payer by means of a benefit, then you do three bad things. Firstly you increase administrative cost of running the system. Secondly you increase the hassle (i.e. the compliance cost) that the tax payer has to go through to get the money. And lastly you increase the population's dependence on a welfare state rather than encouraging and releasing entrepreneurship and stimulating creative growth.
- Peter

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There is no doubt that promising lower taxes to lower income earners and students will win Labour anther term in Government, but by the time the next election arrives New Zealand will be in trouble and the voters will be calling for a change of Government. Higher tax from business should be returned to business after all these are the risk takers who will provide the jobs and future economic growth for this country, as a country we do not need politicians thinking short term we should be aiming to build on the strong economic growth of the last 5 years for the next 5-10 years and beyound. Where is the incentive to work harder and improve your lot under the working for families package, this just looks and sounds far to complicated, its not that hard so lets just keep it simple.
- Trevor Pye

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I find it hard to believe that there will be any relief on tax. As from past experience of Politicians they make promises before the election and when they get in have very convenient memories and forget the promises made that actually got them elected.
- June Flanagin

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1. Its good to give back tax as alternative hand out and not cutting tax as Government has control over its social schemes and it does not become an automatic right to low tax even in tough economic conditions, imagine a government trying to increase tax to meet expenses.

2. Media critics or those critical of this policy saying that taking money out of the business or elite is not fair should also realise there can be no win win situation when it comes to taxation it always goes by priority and always will. The very same critics would have been shouting on top of their voice had the top tax rate been cut - saying government favoured 1.6m people against 2.4m. There may be disincentives to work harder but not all the top money spinners have earned money working hard and they will anyway bear the brunt as social costs of huge income gap can be devastating.

National does not know what it is talking about. There is no direction and all it is based on is just anti Labour. Do they have any novelty or something devised by their own? Its policy is simply reverse anything labour does and comes out " National election promise" They take so long to declare their tax policy simply because they wait for all shots to be fired by Labour before they use theirs. In short National policy is just "Reactive not Proactive"
- Rajesh kumar

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The surplus should be used to reduce tax for all workers. To give all the benefits to families and solo parents is a kick in the teeth of those who are single or coupled without children. As a single person myself in order to purchase a house in Auckland I need to have a huge deposit and be earning about $60,000 a year. Just in case the government wasn't aware, there are a lot of single people out there queueing up to vote for National if they can deliver on their promises to provide across the board tax cuts.
- Graeme

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Funding a tax relief for low-income families using business taxpayers' money is dreadful. In a century when New Zealand should be competing hard against other countries around the world, how is it going to be good by hurting the income- and growth-generating businesses to fund the low-income (and probably less productive) families? Certainly our talents will leave – they will not stay to provide the funds that provide little or no benefits to them. As quoted from the Herald: "at least 1.6 million New Zealanders do not have the incomes and family sizes to qualify for either family support or the rates rebate, do not have student loans, do not need cataract, hip or knee operations, and do not plan to become apprentices." So where are the group of taxpayers we want to keep in New Zealand? The talents? Foreign investors bring money into the country? You can find them in the 1.6 million.
- S Mack (Auckland)

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Great, wonderful, Labour has fulfilled its promise at last. Children will at last come first. I certainly will be voting for them now.
- J Semmens

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I've never seen more blatant electioneering bribery than in this election. I did not realise that our education, health and transport systems where so well funded that we could afford to throw a few dollars back to the public who will then use it to acquire yet more debt!
- Dave Smyth

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I am happy for them to spend the money on people who are in real need of it.
- Areti Metuamate

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I pay mortgage, living expense and sometime I even do not have enough money to pay my bills but government still say I should pay more tax or no tax reduction to people like me. It's time to change government before it change our country structure to socialism. We need very small government and big community. Big government was always a very bad thing for the country from a history view.
- John

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The government, financial advisers and anyone with a few grams of common sense (which tends to preclude the first two) will tell you that to get ahead financially one's first spending priority with any surplus money is to reduce one's debt or reinvest in growth. How then has the government decided to ignore this common wisdom? Answer: There's an election to be won and, rather than be economically prudent, we need to 'invest' in self preservation and use the surplus to try to bribe our way back into office for another term.
- Grant Nordick

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The way we are being taxed is theft. The money stolen from us by these 'chardonnay socialists', must be returned to all. Unfortunately those that are dictating to us have no sense of decency or plain common sense. The unsustainable agendas of historian (Michael Cullen), political scientists (Helen Clark and Phil Goff), Sociologist (Steve Maharey) and lawyer (Margaret Wilson) will come to an end one day. But the tragedy is, at an awful cost to our citizens and country.
- Sally McIntyre

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I don't believe that this is a sustainable policy. What happens to all those families when the money is taken away - which it will need to be. What about families with a single income who are just over the threshold, they'll be disadvantaged. I believe a majority of low income earners will use the extra money to smoke, drink, gamble rather than provide for their children (of which they'll have more to get more money). Is Cullen just incompetent - surely that much surplus shouldn't be a surprise! Higher income earners and business will have to pay, and mortgage rates will increase!
- Jennifer Ross

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I'm 23, just finished a 5 year degree in accounting & economics, now i have a $40,000 student loan, no assets, earning a measly $26,000, having compulsory student loan deductions of $20 per week, leaving me with $380 out of $500. I'm with a partner who's now permanently on ACC at 80% of the "minimum livable wage", we have no children, and now Labour's giving more money to families leaving us struggling while petrol prices skyrocket with soon to follow on effects in food prices and rent also increases. How about a tax package that's actually fair, that doesn't favour one area of society over another.
- Daniel Vant

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Labour's tax cut is vote-buying. Same with the student loan interest rate cut. Why is it that Labour said National couldn't afford a cut and now they are doing it? Hmmm...
- Cate

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I personally think tax cuts across the board should be the fairest of all tax reductions. When the country prospers, every one should benefit and share in that prosperity. I am a hard working, high income earner and it is from my taxes that the country prospers. Yet the government takes my money (taxes), give it to other more "needy" people and I am slapped with nothing. I have three children but get nothing from the government because I earned too much. It appears that I get penalised for earning too much yet these high income earners are needed to sustain the economy. The government just doesn't take care of the high income earners - no wonder New Zealand has all these brain drain. The Labour Government has failed its pledge - there are more and more working Kiwis now falling into the 39% tax bracket.
- Annie Goh

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This Government has been over taxing for the past 6 years and the money should be going back to its original owners. If you have the choice, which corner dairy would you deal with? The one who acknowledges you have overpaid and refunds the change, or the one who says nothing and pockets the extra. Therein lies the difference between National and this Government.
- Lindsay Holmes

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What does Cullen really think? Is he so stupid that he thinks the electorate will be fooled by such an oblivious [sic] vote grab? The Labour party's offer is yet again more social engineering. They will have the situation where a family like mine is given "assistance" to live from them via the IRD and Social Welfare. Then Oh NO through hard work and graft we get an increase in our income, it takes time for the OH SO generous and magnanimous government autocracy to inform us that we now earn above their ridiculous threshold (not enough for any family to survive in Auckland with two under 5s in full time care). Then after a number of months of earning penalties and interest on the "Overpaid" funds they use stand over tactics to regain said money that was paid out. This is socialism gone nuts! Why not just let the people earn a decent living income and then tax everything above that!? "Dr" cullen it is not your money nor is it the governing party's - it is the taxpayers money.
- Logan

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If the government has a surplus, it is taxing the worker too much. There should be tax cuts, not more welfare. The tax take just keeps on getting larger and larger.
- Mike Hayman

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Any tax reduction should fair and equitable and across the board not just targeted at the secor of the population that votes for the incumbent government. People should be left to spend their earnings as they want to, not have it take by the left hand and given back as a welfare benefit. After all whose money is it. Under MMP the people of New Zealand should take back the running of their country by voting for people like Peter Dunne and the Act party to show the two large parties that they are sick and tired of their dictatorial way of running the country for their own political benefit.
- Frank Kearney

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What is important in deciding to whom to give your party vote? Only one thing: policies which contribute to growth of the per capita economy over the medium to long term. This means helping business. All your tax cuts, benefits and other government spending have to be paid for. The only way that can happen, and be sustained, is to grow the economic cake. Only business can do that. A related matter: we're at the very bottom of the energy food chain. Growing population is not an option as long as we're dependant upon imported energy.
- Alan Henderson

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It's time to cut the tax, especially for company tax first, to keep the line with other countries, like OZ. This will attract & keep business in NZ. More business means more jobs, more revenue, more wealthy.
- Li

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Well, After Labour's tax cut policy I think I may as well leave the country. My partner and I are a professional couple living in Auckland with no aspirations to have children and are saving hard to buy our first home. National may sell off state assets to fund tax cuts. Labour just wants to help families. So those of us that just want a good quality of life and enjoy this great country are left with nothing. What are my taxes paying for? A good solid welfare state or maybe the family down the road that owns a million dollar home and has excess income levels that we would all love to have but still get assistance from the working with family package. No not anymore, I would be better of doing what all my friends have done and move to Australia. Being in the Generation X bracket what have we got to look forward to? A majority of Baby Boomers heading for retirement possibly selling assets we still can't afford and a generation following behind with huge student debt!
- Andrew

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Reduce tax rates for everyone and get rid of the tall poppy syndrome locked into the tax system. So that when people go the extra mile they get the extra benefit that they rightly deserve.
- Andrew Robertson

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Yes the surplus should be used to reduce tax. But why only for the low income earners or those with children. Surpluses should be distributed fairly and evenly and not given to by votes or promote more children. People without children that work and save should be entitled to the same benefits as others.
- Mark Hackshaw

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Would you vote for a govt who:
1) says will not increase tax (pre-election time), but has now lost count as to the number of tax increases and zero tax cuts,
2) squandered nearly $300m of tax-payers' money into some "tertiary" institute/courses, and
3) thought they are going to make $500m a year only to find out they (or rather the tax-payers) will have to foot $500m a year instead, and then
4) less than 6months ago said that there's no more money in the coffer for ANY tax relief and suddenly "found" almost $2b for tax "relief".
Were they miscalculations? Think again. Moral issues aside, education, health, infrastructure and crime needs funding, what if there's another miscalculation? I do not see any ex-banker, accountant, businessman or someone with a strong financial background in the present govt, do you?
- Albert K