The SME Stream

A tax expert says the Greens' proposed approach to tackling corporate greed - is likely to be unpopular.
If elected, the party's promising to add new super rich, gifts and inheritance taxes, a major banks levy and a big tech tax.
It also wants to lift the corporate tax rate to 33 percent - for large companies like supermarkets, gentailers and banks.
PWC tax partner Sandy Lau shares her thoughts with Ryan.
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There's no point talking about the latest loony bin tax plan grab from the Greens because it's not going to become anything more than a word doc on their website. It's not going to happen.
An inheritance tax is about the cruellest thing a state can impose on a grieving family. 33% when mum or dad dies. You've got to then take out a loan from the bank, congratulations bank and pay the government. Or sell the shares or property or whatever. Then pay the state. Congratulations state.
The idea is that somehow, this act of forced goodwill, taxing assets your family's worked hard to acquire, using money that's already been taxed, earning income that is already taxed, will somewhere, somehow materially change the livers of others is absolute BS.
I've just been in France where they have exactly this system. They have high personal income tax rates. And they're swinging far right.
And this plan includes a wealth tax on everything from shares to companies, which only a handful of countries around the world bother doing because you may have asset, but it doesn't mean you've got cash to pay a tax on it.
Just a reminder. This is not how a country gets rich. This is not how you create more jobs and industry. It's not how you grow an economy.
And if you're not doing that. You're standing still or going backwards.
We've been doing that in this country for too long.
Ideas like this, may be appealing on paper, in reality almost never deliver the things the politicians espousing them promise on the hustings.
You don't hear this said often but thank god for Labour completely ruling this thing out.
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Tell me something: does what’s just happened with the Golden Mile upgrade in Wellington restore your faith in the possibility that councils can actually be run properly?
Because that thing - I don’t know if you’ve been following it over the years - but the Golden Mile upgrade has been an albatross around the necks of Wellington business owners and ratepayers since probably about 2016.
It was always going to be too expensive, especially when it tripled in price. It was always going to kill businesses once construction started and cars were banned from driving on the Golden Mile.
And it was always going to be one of the most frustrating examples of a Labour-Green majority council, obsessed with its hatred of cars, forcing through its pet project despite howls of outrage from the public - who would end up paying for it in more ways than one.
This went on for years and years: the public saying “please don’t,” the council saying, “nah, we’re gonna.” It just went on and on.
Then Andrew Little arrived - the first good mayor since Kerry Prendergast left office in 2010 - and everything changed. Within six months, the Golden Mile project was dead.
Even councillors who had previously voted for it, like Ben McNulty, changed their votes and killed it off - presumably because that’s what a good leader does. They take people with them. They change people’s minds.
Andrew Little is like a new broom in that city. He’s killed off the most vexed and controversial project. He’s fired a warning shot at the consultants that he is not prepared to pay endless bills for a cast of thousands to tell him what two or three people could.
He’s forced council staff to cut back on ridiculously high budgets. He’s immediately reduced the infighting around the table. He’s the grown-up who has taken over after 15 years of the kids trying to run the place themselves.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Wellington City Council is not the worst council in the country.
It restores your faith, doesn’t it? All you need is a decent candidate to put their hand up, and even the worst-run place can actually be rescued.
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Very shortly public voting will be underway for the Spark Retail NZ's People's Choice award.
The People’s Choice Award recognises a retailer that has made a genuine, positive impact on its customers.
Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young said it's important to allow Kiwis to have a say in who they think deserves the award.
Voting is open from Friday the 26th, and the awards ceremony will be on the 3rd of September.
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As the election gets closer, parties are starting to release their policies. And after a slow start, keeping their cards close to their chest, Labour's building up steam. We already had the three free doctors visits for all, now we've got free maternity scans and a promise to scrap the $5 fee on prescriptions and make them universally free. Add that to the free public transport, well, up to a point, $20 in the major cities and $10 everywhere else, and that capital gains tax is going to be working overtime to pay for it all. So far, so Labour. But I'm not really sure about the Oprah-fication of Labour's policies. "You get a doctor's visit, and you get a doctor's visit, and here's one for you too. You get a free bus ride, and here's a free bus ride for you, and one for you as well."
I understand that universal allowances, free bus rides for all, means less admin as opposed to targeted assistance, which if the administration and the paperwork for that didn't exist, would be a faff. But it does. The admin's already been done to reach those who need help the most. We have the community services card. So why not link the three free GP visits, the free bus trips, the free maternity scans to the community services card? And when I say free, I mean taxpayer funded. There is no such thing as free.
So why would the taxpayer be funding free public transport, free doctor's visits, free prescriptions for people who don't need it? I don't think anybody would object to trying to keep pregnant mums healthy, to trying to keep the community healthy, to trying to prevent people from going into hospital because they can't afford to go to the doctor or pick up prescriptions. We're all in it for that, and even if you don't care about people, you only care about the sums, if you do the sums, it pays off for people to be seen by their primary healthcare provider so they don't end up in hospital. All makes perfect sense.
What doesn't make sense is why the taxpayer is funding all of these things for people who do not need it. And you can't even say no thank you very much to some of them. I totally get that one of the platforms of Labour's policies is health, and they want to make sure that we keep people out of hospitals. Absolutely fine. But when Chris Hipkins was talking to Heather du Plessis Allan yesterday afternoon about the 150,000 people who aren't picking up prescriptions, I am not convinced that all of those people were avoiding picking up their prescriptions because of cost. Some of them can't be bothered. You know, buses are put on to remote areas to take people to their hospital appointments. Short of picking them up in a sedan chair and carrying them on the shoulders of the healthy and the hale to get them to their hospital appointments, you could not make it any easier. But I've heard from nurses and doctors and people themselves that they don't go. They take the free bus and then they go shopping in Whangārei, even though they've got an appointment. They don't bother telling people they're not going to turn up. So there'll be people who just can't be bothered. They don't prioritise their own health, they've got other things they're prioritising and it's not their own health. There are people who don't like taking pills, thinking oh for heaven's sake, you're asking me to take another pill, I'm already taking three, I don't want to take a fourth. There are people who'll be feeling better, think nah, don't need this one.
I am not entirely convinced that when he says 150,000 people aren't picking up prescriptions, that a) those numbers are right, because we're hearing a lot of numbers being thrown around by every party over all of their policies. I'm not entirely convinced about that. I'm not convinced about the cost. All I would like is targeted assistance to people who need it. As a taxpayer, I am perfectly happy to fund any kind of policy that will help make life a little bit easier and ultimately save us money in the long run by looking after people. The community services card exists to help those who need a little bit extra. Use that. The rest of us are fine.
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