Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declines to commit to a revenue-neutral capital gains tax

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will not commit to returning revenue raised through a capital gains tax through tax cuts, despite the Government asking for options to do so from the Tax Working Group.

Speaking to reporters at the her weekly post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, Ardern was asked whether she was committed to making any capital gains tax revenue neutral.

"It was one of the direct requests we made of the Tax Working Group so obviously we were interested in those ideas, but we've made no commitments on any elements of the working group's report," Ardern said.

Ardern said there were a number of recommendations in the report on how to make a CGT revenue neutral by dispersing revenue back to taxpayers but she didn't want to get ahead of the process.

It has been widely expected that any capital gains tax will be revenue neutral, and a way to balance the incomes of the haves and have-nots through the dispersal of revenue.

Meanwhile, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson has gone further than her party's policy on a capital gains tax, saying she was open to a debate on whether it should apply to the family home.

Official Green Party policy is that any CGT would exclude any capital profit made on the sale of the family home.

Labour has the same policy, while New Zealand First has traditionally opposed to nay capital gains tax.

Davidson yesterday took aim at the "wealthy elite" and property speculators, telling a party policy conference in Wellington a CGT should be just the beginning of a wide-ranging reform of the tax system targeting the wealthy.

"The resistance to the capital gains tax by the wealthy elite, who often own multiple properties, shows that our political system is still held hostage by the people who benefit from an unregulated housing market," she said.

"The capital gains tax should be the beginning of a wide range of reforms to transform our tax system. The Greens have long called for a range of reforms, like increasing the tax rate for the richest 1 per cent and putting a tax on polluting big businesses and housing speculators," Davidson said.

The Taxpayers' Union said her comments yesterday were an insult to middle New Zealand.

"Ms Davidson either doesn't understand the proposed tax and hasn't read Dr Cullen's report, or she knows that in reality she is attacking middle New Zealanders, hundreds of thousands of whom will be whacked by the tax," Williams said in a statement.